Metroid Prime: The Ed Hunters
by Eds Maniac
Summary: The first story of the trilogy: Ed, Edd and Eddy, after a reality-bending mishap, find themselves scattered on an alien planet called Tallon IV. Now, they must search for each other, discover the mystery behind this derelict world, and find a way home.
1. No Second Chances

**_Chapter One_**

**_No Second Chances_**

"Step right up, folks! Get your cheap fast food here at Ed-to-Go!"

These were the first words spoken on the morning of Friday, July 9 in the year 2005. The one who shouted them was Eddy, a rather young, vertically challenged pre-teenager who happened to be positioned behind a well-polished makeshift counter outside of his house in a small suburban cul-de-sac known as Peach Creek. On that particularly fine Friday morning, this spunky individual was making an attempt to cheat the neighborhood kids out of their money with a carefully-designed masquerade that was manifested (at least to his greatest ability) as a fast food "restaurant". No matter what the guise of his scheming was, the art of fleecing his peers out of their allowances was local bad-seed Eddy's most cherished pastime.

He paused before making another announcement, and realized he was missing a useful apparatus. "Hey, Double Dee!" he called in his signature aggravating, gravelly voice, still gazing out at the silent dawn that was blanketing the rest of the cul-de-sac. "Where'd you put the megaphone?"

Stationed several feet behind Eddy was his close friend (or rather subordinate) Edd, known to all as "Double Dee" due to the similarity between his and his friends' names. Though he was a friend of Eddy, Edd was a quiet young man who still flourished in his pre-teenager years, though his mental capacity had far surpassed those of other children of the time. Unlike most children, he abhorred violence and found great joy in undertaking tedious tasks such as chores. He was a scientist at heart, and always sported a characteristically mysterious black beanie that concealed unknown mysteries on his scalp.

"Well, I…I'm…not sure," muttered Edd, rubbing the back of his neck and glancing around, unable to spot the elusive device. "Ed, do you have it?"

Edd had turned to his right, addressing his and Eddy's other mutual companion who happened to be named Ed. Now, Ed was the same age as his friends, and while his mental capacity was a bit lacking (though "a bit" may be an understatement), his knowledge and love of science fiction was unsurpassable and his imagination roamed more freely than a wild falcon. His recognizable unibrow and great height made him stand out amongst his friends. At this time, he was childishly playing with the megaphone, running around and imagining it to be some sort of interstellar spaceship.

"Fire photon cannons!" cried Ed in an authorative voice as he swung the megaphone around, dodging imaginary warships. "Hit 'em hard! I am too good for you!"

Eddy let out an exasperated sigh, slammed his palms on the plywood counter, turned around, and stomped up to Ed, his teeth gritted - he was not amused. He had never been a big fan of Ed's constant fooling around during his precious scam-time. "Ed, give me the megaphone!" he growled, his short temper rising at an alarming rate.

Now, Ed was never one to listen to the spoken words of others, but today his behavior seemed a tad abnormal, for he promptly cooperated and gave his spaceship to Eddy. "Oh, sure thing, Eddy!" complied Ed, smiling, his mind now set on thoughts of pudding skin – a relic of enlightenment in his own mind.

Slightly perplexed by his friend's strange behavior, Eddy made his way up to the counter again, assumed a false welcoming grimace, and shouted loudly into the megaphone: "Step right up, folks! Get your fast food here at Ed-to-Go!"

Though his vocals were mind-gratingly distorted, the scamming commenced - and not a moment too soon, for within a minute, all of the neighborhood kids were lined up at the counter. A small militia, one would say.

"Our suckers have arrived!" Eddy snickered, his eyes squinting with excitement and his grin widening with gluttony. He quickly waved to Edd and Ed, whispering "Eds! To your positions!"

Edd had already hustled up to the counter alongside Eddy before whispering "Roger!" Of course, not all people are as comprehending as others, for Ed was dumbstruck. "Roger?" asked Ed, confused beyond the belief of all mankind put together. "Who's Roger, Double Dee?" His face flattened, assumed a horse-like expression, and compressed into space.

Eddy turned around and let out another, now-characteristic exasperated groan, irritated by his friend's moronity. "Ed, just…gah…go over _there_!" hissed Eddy through gritted teeth, pointing to the front door of his own house (the point was so full of force that he nearly dislocated his shoulder). Ed did as he was told with a grin on his face and a guffaw emanating from his windpipe.

And so last-minute preparations had finally ceased, for bald-and-big-headed-happy-go-lucky-white-shirt-wearing Jonny 2x4 was at the front of the line, holding his best friend Plank, a 2x4 with a face etched onto it, in his hands. Jonny was a simple boy with a love of life and a happy-go-lucky nature; that and he was extremely naïve and had a wild imagination. He was also very prone to being weirded out, hence his growing confusion in his encounters with the Eds.

His best friend, Plank, was exactly what his name suggested: a 2x4 with two eyes and a mouth crayoned onto it in an attempt to give it personality. And somehow, it worked – Jonny supposedly could understand the inner workings of this wooden board and toted it around constantly as if it were a Siamese twin. Strange it sounded, and strange it was.

"Hiya, Jonny-boy!" greeted Eddy charismatically with an exceptionally cheesy and overworked TV-commercial-salesman voice. "What'll it be?" His own sleekness, or whatever he perceived it to be, brought tears to his eyes.

"Hiya, Eddy! I'll have an Ed-burger," answered Jonny jovially after a few seconds of careful contemplation (and after analyzing the terribly-crafted paper menu on the side of the counter). "And Plank here will have a…what?" A punch to the brain. Terrible shock. A development had occurred between a boy and his plank. Jonny stared at his wooden friend, astonished and appalled, his pupils shrinking in horror at the "telepathic" message he had received from his personal wooden board. "What do you _mean_ you won't eat cheap fast food when you're on a diet? How am I supposed to afford a deluxe meal at a five-star restaurant with only…don't you talk to me like…!"

_Well, so much for that, _thought Eddy as he watched Jonny walk a few feet away from the counter waging a losing argument with a wooden board. But no matter – the other children had begun to shout their own requests at the "ed-ployees": an "Ed Shake" for big-mouthed Sarah (Ed's osprey-like, annoying little sister) and girly-boy Jimmy (Sarah's best and overly effeminate braces-sporting friend), the "Big Ed Burger" for foreigner-farm-boy Rolf (a true enigma hailing from the Alps), an "Ed-ka-bob" for neighborhood-dream-girl Nazz (a blonde with a charm that could liquefy the souls of any pre-teenage boy and make them melt on the spot like margarine), and a "How about a knuckle sandwich, you dork?" for slack-jawed, bike riding, punkster jock, Ed-hating Kevin (the arch nemesis of the Eds…especially Eddy, whose tolerance of him seemed to be relatively microscopic in magnitude).

This swift barrage of orders proved to be the miracle-grow that would fuel Eddy's seed of over-excitement. His heart raced as the thought of dull-green cash infiltrated his scheming mind. "Ed! Go get the food out of my fridge!" he shouted excitedly to his dimwitted companion, not even bothering to turn around and lose sight of his suckers.

Apparently unaware of it, Eddy had just unwittingly activated a metaphorical time bomb. "Sure thing, Eddy!" replied Ed in a booming voice full of enthusiasm to carry out (or at least _try_ to fulfill) his task. Hence, he turned around a full 180 degrees and skipped merrily through the open front door and into Eddy's living room.

Now Edd, being the analyst and worrywart that he was, was rightfully concerned with the task that Eddy had entrusted Ed with – it seemed far too much for one Ed to comprehend. "Eddy, can we really trust Ed with retrieving all of that food? Or going into a house _alone_, for that matter?" He looked back at the open door, catching a glimpse of Ed shuffling his way into Eddy's living room. He began to perspire with concern, which added a "hygienic shower" to his mental list of things-to-do.

Eddy, who seemed to be quite preoccupied with the swarm of peers that stood before him and whose mind was filled with thoughts of cash-baths, did not seem to be worried, not that he would have cared in the first place. "Nah, he can handle it," was all that he had to say on the matter.

Hearing this, and knowing that it would be nearly impossible to convince Eddy that something would probably go awry, Edd decided to prematurely give up on the matter. However, he had worried for good reason – at that exact moment, for the first time in decades, a sudden but mind-bendingly tremendous earthquake struck the cul-de-sac with balance-obliterating force.

Panic immediately ensued as the neighborhood kids began to run aimlessly in circles, screaming in terror and announcing that they were planning on "getting the heck out of here". Eddy's only concern was that his makeshift counter had just toppled down in front of him, effectively ruining the authenticity of his scheme. He gritted his teeth, which chattered due to the trembling earth.

"_My Great Nana is headed this way!_" shrieked Rolf through a thick, impossible-to-pinpoint European accent, suggesting that his great grandmother, who apparently had a weight statistic that was in the high four-hundred range, was causing the earth to split open. "_Run for your lives!_"

Amidst the screams, Edd managed to grab hold of Eddy's shoulders from behind, supporting himself so as to not fall down due to the quaking ground. "Eddy! The earth is splitting open!" he shouted into his friend's ear. "We need to evacuate the vicinity!"

Eddy shrugged Edd's weak hands off of his shoulders and turned around with the intention of knocking him out for touching his signature yellow shirt, but was distracted upon seeing something relatively askew going on inside of his house. "_What the…Ed!_" he screamed upon seeing his oafish companion walk through the living room and toward the front door carrying the support beam of his house. "_You idiot! My house is gonna fall down!_"

As the hinges on Eddy's roof began to shoot into the distance and as the walls began to chip and crumble, Edd came to a sudden realization that both amused and horrified him beyond any conceivable extent. "Eddy…_Ed mistook your house's support beam for a shish-ka-bob stick!_"

Before Eddy could scream, cry, punch, run, or think, for that matter, the foundations of his house began to undergo its death throes – after a sickening terrestrial jolt and a gut-wrenching cracking sound from underground, Eddy's house, which had stood for many years and had housed his very ancestors, collapsed, sending dust, rubble, and soot flying in every direction. The neighborhood kids dispersed with all speed as the Eds were duly consumed by the falling structure.

Only after a great many minutes did Ed, Edd, and Eddy finally emerge from the rubble, the dust finally settled. They did not seem to be harmed in any way, miraculously, though their thoughts were not in such positive states. For one, Ed had forgotten what pudding skin looked like and could not picture it in his mind, causing him to grab his skull and run around in dismay. Edd was preoccupying himself with scanning the area, muttering to himself "messy, messy, messy…", heartbroken at the terrible lack of orderliness and cleanliness that lay before him.

Eddy was in a much simpler state, though. He was simply in shock. A constant, dull beating in his ears cut off his hearing and he viewed the ruins before him through blurred vision. He was sweating profusely, spotting an armchair, a lava lamp, a bed, a television, and even a car amidst the rubble. His house was standing before. He was used to it standing - so used to it that he never imagined it _not_ standing. Now it was reality. He clenched his fists as his fury rose. His skin literally turned red as his temper skyrocketed. He had only one word echoing in his mind that he finally verbalized after a minute of standing there in fury.

"_Ed!_"

All Edd saw was a relatively fast blur sweep across his field of vision, and then he heard a growl, then a crash, then a scream of anger and a laugh of confusion. He turned to his right and witnessed in horror what was happening. Eddy was sitting on big Ed's back and was clutching his friend's skull, repeatedly bashing it into the dust-caked ground, screaming "_you destroyed my house, Ed! My stinkin' house is sawdust!_" all the while. Even though Ed seemingly found such torture quite amusing, Edd still felt compelled to interject.

"_Eddy!_" cried Edd as he rushed over to the wrestling match that was taking place on Eddy's front lawn. "Stop it this instant! Can't you see you're hurting the poor man?" He already knew it was no use – Eddy's fury was inextinguishable.

This was proven when Eddy turned to Edd, still seated on Ed's back and growled "_You_ stay out of it, Sockhead! Ed destroyed _my_ house, not yours! Besides, he's laughing, so back off!" He then continued to smash Ed's cranium into the grass – this seemed ineffective, for Ed was openly enjoying it, shouting "This is fun!" all the while.

Edd sighed at the thought of his next course of action – he had not wanted to reveal his secret project to anyone besides the press, but it seemed he had no choice. "Eddy, what if I told you we can fix _everything _that just happened, and that we can attempt your scam once more…a second chance, you might say." He said this relatively calmly, trying to lighten the situation a smidge.

As hopeless as it had seemed, Eddy promptly let go of Ed's head and sprung to his feet, staring at Edd in disbelief. "No way," he muttered. "You gotta be kidding. If you _are_ kidding, I'm gonna knock your teeth out, Sockhe-"

"Time machine," interrupted Edd. He had revealed it, though he had tried to avoid doing so for many months. However, it did work very well – it had garnered both Eddy and Ed's attention…and then some. They stared at him in disbelief, wide smiles stretching across their faces (Ed's face seemed to be quite grass-ridden and covered in dirt). "I have been working on a time machine over the past few months and had planned on revealing it to everyone later on, but I suppose using it now would not be such a…"

The next thing he knew, he was being dragged across the cul-de-sac by his ankles at a grueling pace by Eddy, screaming as his chin and chest scraped against the cold concrete, the sidewalk, and the lawns that they subsequently crossed. Eddy's excitement was unsurpassable – he now had a chance to restore his house _and _make money simultaneously, among other things that he could potentially do in the future through some clever time-machine-manipulation. His mind was racing, and so was he, keeping a firm grasp on Edd's ankles as he ran. Ed followed after them in hot pursuit, unbelievably eager to see what marvels Edd had been working on that he did not know about.

They were headed to Edd's basement, where the world's first time machine was being produced.

* * *

"Thank you Eddy, now I have to get a new shirt…"

"What'd you say?"

"Nothing, nothing…"

"Haha, I'm hungry…"

Edd had been preoccupying himself with brushing off his now-filthy orange shirt while trying to balance on aching ankles after being dragged across the cul-de-sac, through his house, down the basement stairs, and into the main underground chamber. Eddy was standing impatiently, tapping his foot and checking his watch, muttering to himself as Edd did this, while Ed looked around, marveling at the perfectly white walls and the laundry baskets scattered randomly amidst the cobwebs and washers.

"Okay, okay, where was I…" muttered Edd to himself after rubbing the last clod of dirt off of his shirt as he walked over to the seven-foot tall, blue-sheet draped, cylindrical object located in the northeast corner of the basement. He let out a deep sigh, regretting that he was prematurely revealing what was possibly his greatest work to date, and grasped the blue cloak tightly. "Gentlemen, I give you the Time Transport 3000!"

Edd quickly (and perhaps too dramatically) flung the blue sheet away, revealing what was perhaps the most technologically-advanced marvel that Ed and Eddy had ever laid eyes on. This chrome-coated, glistening apparatus was relatively colossal in size, sporting a wide array of colored buttons, receptors, antennae, and a plethora of other scientifically-oriented gadgets and doohickeys on both its exterior and its visible interior. It was cylindrical in shape and magnificent to the eyes.

"Holy cow…!" cried Eddy in awe, marveling at the science-surpassing sub-structure that stood before him as well as the beaming, five-and-a-half-foot pre-teenager who stood beside it. "_You_ built this, Sockhead? How did you…" The words escaped even his characteristic loud-mouthedness. He was stricken with pure, unsaturated amazement.

Ed was already inside the contraption, marveling at the cramped quarters that were packed with as many terminals and apparatuses as the external shell of the machine was. Before this moment, even he, with his wild imagination, could not fathom the thought of the existence of time machines in reality – what he was seeing now was a dream come true. Thus, he took action. "Double Dee!" he cried in delight, jumping high into the air to manifest his joy. He turned a full 180 degrees and galloped toward both Edd and Eddy, a wide grin on his face and a fire in his eyes. He grabbed his friends and held them under his arms, exposing them to the putrid odor that extruded from his armpits (hygiene was a non-existent term or practice to Ed), made a U-turn, and ran full speed into the time machine, ignoring the protests and screams of his pals.

Placing them down, his excitement was too great to pay attention to the brunt of Eddy's insults and scoldings – he simply stared at the marvels around him. Which button should he press? Which button would produce intergalactic space mutants? Or summon equipment that could be used at his disposal in order to reenact the Space Outlaw adventures he read about in comic books of yore. He urinated once again, his teeth digging into his lower lip with excitement.

Edd, dusting off his already-torn-apart orange t-shirt, paid little attention to the obvious praise that Ed was offering him and instead focused on locating the apparatus that would send him and his friends back in time. "Now, where did I put that…?" he muttered to himself as Eddy yelled at Ed for "chafing his sides". He mentally kicked himself for not knowing the location of a button in his own invention. That was when he spotted a hexagonal blue button adjacent to a mini-keyboard to his left: the time-setting apparatus. "There you are!" he sighed in relief as he set his fingers on the keys, preparing to type in "one hour ago" – this would send him and his friends back in time in order to re-attempt Eddy's scam and save his house from eventual ruin.

Ed was paying absolutely no attention to Eddy's rantings about his sides, and was instead shaking with anticipation; they were in a time machine! As he thought about it more and more (though the word "thought" can hardly be applied to this young man), he came to realize that his experience in such an apparatus was not to be limited to a trip to one hour ago. Unacceptable! Thus he acted upon this realization, pushing Eddy aside and rushing toward the control panel that Edd was situated at. "Let me help, Double Dee!" he cried with surprisingly frightening enthusiasm as he grabbed Edd by the arm and threw him to the side, sending him sliding on the ground and crashing into Eddy.

Eddy had no idea what was going on, but all he knew was that Ed was being stupid again. Edd, however, was fully aware that what Ed was doing could have life-threatening effects. Thus, he shouted "Ed, _stop! Don't touch that!_" Though even he knew that Ed wouldn't heed his words – the lummox was pounding away on the keys, pressing buttons, turning dials, and activating switches at random, laughing all the while out of sheer curiosity. He was _not _a bright boy.

Amidst the confusion, Eddy rose to his feet, brushing off his shirt before pointing at Ed in a threatening manner. "Ed, you idiot!" he barked, his forehead wrinkling as his eyebrows tilted as part of his angry expression. "What _is _it with you and ticking me off?"

His following sentences were lost from memory as the time machine began to quake violently and spontaneously. Edd rose to his feet, struggling with all his might to maintain his balance, and looked over at the terminal at which Ed was stationed. "_Ed, what have you done?!_" he shrieked in terror, clutching his head, his eyes wide open in shock as he stumbled his way to the terminal. He promptly shoved the guffawing, dumbstruck Ed to the side and stared at the screen on the "dashboard" in horror, his jaw hanging open, slowly emitting a horrified scream. "_Ed, no! You've…"_

Eddy now shifted his attention from Ed to the horrorstruck Edd, wondering what was going on and why Edd's entire basement was now trembling as his house had earlier. "Um, what's going on, Double Dee?" he asked, his worry growing exponentially. "_Did Ed break the stinking time machine?!_"

Edd promptly turned around and faced Eddy, ignoring Ed stupidly laughing on the floor beside him. Sweat was dripping down his face, his eyes open wide with terror, and he was respiring at an extremely rapid rate. Something was wrong. No, something was _more_ than wrong.

"Eddy, you're not going to believe this," started Edd, staring at Eddy in the eyes, thinking of a way to reveal what horrors he had just learned of. "Ed…Ed just…_set the time machine's coordinates on a dimensional scale relative to the universe's gravitational grid!_" He cried out in horror – he expected Eddy to do the same.

However, Eddy just gazed at Edd, completely dumbstruck and feeling uncomfortably like Ed. Although he was significantly more intelligent than Ed, he could never comprehend the intense vocabulary that Edd commonly utilized. "_Say it in English, Sockhead!_" he yelled, his fists clenched in both annoyance and fright. "_I hate it when you_-"

_"The time machine is warping us ten-thousand light-years into outer space!"_

It did not even take three seconds for this news to register into Eddy's mind – as soon as Edd had finished pronouncing the word "space", he screamed in terror. However, his screams were drowned out by the cataclysmic trembling of the time machine and the electrical jolts streaming all about. Edd's cries of horror were also submerged beneath the noise as he attempted to reverse the cycle in vain.

And Ed simply lay on the aluminum floor laughing his face off, almost completely unaware of what he had done – all that was on his mind was the thought of dancing chickens (a thought that always provoked laughter within him).

Before any of them could escape or propose a solution to the terrible situation at hand, Edd's entire basement spontaneously flashed with a brilliant crimson light; five times to be exact. The foundations of Edd's house began to tremble as the time machine began to quake to the point where bursting would not have been an illogical occurrence. Then there was one, final flash of blindingly bright sapphire light, and the time machine was gone. Gone from Edd's basement, gone from Peach Creek, gone from North America, gone from Earth, gone from the Solar System, and gone from the galaxy.

Three young men named Ed, Edd, and Eddy were now traveling ten-thousand light years into space, where the unknown was anxiously awaiting their arrival…


	2. Preparation

**_Chapter Two_**

**_Preparation_**

The spastic flashing of blue and red lights had only lasted for about five seconds before all had suddenly dispersed into a field of nothingness – a field of pure white caused by a blindingly bright flash. The plane of existence had been left far behind in an instant, and the unknown realm of time had been entered. It was frighteningly fast – too fast for any human being to handle without losing his own sanity. All space had been traversed in an instant, in one solitary flash. No time had been wasted, yet the effects of strenuous travel still had its harsh effects.

This is what it felt like to travel ten-thousand light years into space within the time frame of one second.

Ed, Edd and Eddy had been present in Edd's basement, located in the ingeniously-crafted Time Transport, to be exact, when all had gone white for just a split second after some ambiguous warning signals had gone off. They remembered that there was some panic going on, but the bright, white flash had disoriented their thoughts. In fact, it might not even have been that, for this could have been due to what they were now seeing as compared to one second ago.

It certainly did not resemble Edd's basement in the least.

Well, perhaps it did – it retained the most technologically-advanced and futuristic qualities, at least. However, the design had been totally contradictory, as this chamber seemed to be the interior of some sort of compact vehicle…a ship, perhaps?

The floor seemed to be comprised of charcoal-colored, metallic tiles, and the same could be said of the walls…relatively plain-looking, and rather dull, to be quite honest. The ceiling was quite low, standing at about six meters tall, while the entire chamber as a whole was about nine by nine meters in terms of area. To the Eds' immediate right was a rather large-looking locker-type apparatus that seemed to be closed at the moment (a good thing, for they were not sure whether they wanted to know what resided inside). Directly ahead of them sat a rather cozy-looking pilot's seat surrounded by what appeared to be a wide assortment of gizmos and gadgets, levers and switches, and a variety of screens – it would have taken about a day to determine the function of each one properly. Directly above the three friends seemed to be a sizeable, circular latch – it appeared to be some sort of exit, and, due to the fact that there did not seem to be any kind of lever or switch with which to operate it, it must have been motion-operated.

It took a few minutes of a disoriented analysis of their surroundings before Ed, of all people, finally found the willpower to speak. "Whoa…" he muttered to himself in sheer awe of the setting that he had just spastically been placed in. "Where _am _I?" He prodded his lower lip thoughtfully, ultimately succeeding, but utterly failing in the "thoughtfulness" aspect.

"You're in the chicken factory, Ed, _duh_," shot Eddy sarcastically, his eyes still darting around wildly. "How am _I_ supposed to know? _You're_ the one that brought us to this dump. Stupid monobrow…" His voice lowered into a barely perceptible murmur as he poked fun at his friend's distinctive unibrow and eventually trailed off.

Edd, however, was the only one of the three that knew the nature of their horrible predicament, and was appropriately perspiring and shaking with fright upon coming to a sudden realization. _Oh no,_ he thought to himself, his eyes violently darting around the chamber in which they were now situated. _The Time Transport is gone…we have no idea where we are…this is not good! How do we return to the cul-de-sac? Calm down, Eddward…rational thought always prevails…no, no, no, it can't. Not this time!_ His fears were reaffirmed when he caught sight of the view that was being offered by the wide cockpit window present several meters before them, and promptly rushed over to it, leaning over the cockpit window and gulping nervously.

"Gentlemen," he stammered, his eyes wide with fear as he surveyed the grand view spread out before him through the glass. "You're not going to believe this…look outside."

Heeding their friend's words, Ed and Eddy also waltzed over to catch a glimpse of what was so unbelievable about the outdoors. "What are you yappin' about, Sockhead?" asked Eddy with an annoyed tone in his voice – Edd always overreacted in this manner. "You going crazy or…_jeez Louise!_"

This had been enough to convince Eddy that their current situation was indeed no laughing matter – it would take just a tad more to convince the highly imaginative Ed, though. What Ed, Edd, and Eddy were looking at through the cockpit window of the strange ship that they were currently placed in…was space. Stars, distant galaxies, far-off nebulae, the works. However, these were only the special background effects – there were much grander things that caught the Eds' eyes.

One of these things just so happened to be an Earth-sized planet floating just to the right of their vision. Incomprehensible, yes, that three ordinary suburban pre-teenagers were staring at an actual, seemingly terrestrial planet from outer space, but their eyes did not deceive them, nor were they dreaming. It _looked_ to be terrestrial, at least, as could be seen by the grandiose canyon-like structure that was running along its side and its fairly rocky-looking, predominantly orange-colored texture.

The second structure that caught their eye, though it was not nearly as large as an average-sized planet, seemed sizeable enough. It seemed to be some sort of interstellar space station, apparently in orbit above the planet, and was quite sizeable, perhaps comparable to the likes of eight double-decker airplanes placed side-by-side on a four by four grid. In fact, the ship that the Eds were currently present on seemed to be present _on_ the structure, perhaps on some sort of landing bay. The station, from the looks of it, appeared to be quite derelict on the outside – floating crates, pipes, and other assorted debris (not counting the asteroids floating and whizzing across space in the distance, of course) seemed to be in permanent orbit around the structure. Not one of the three Eds knew what to make of it – not even Ed, he of the overactive imagination.

Eddy backed away from the window, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow in an attempt to appear unimpressed. He succeeded, of course, because he definitely was _not _impressed – he was deeply frightened. "Yeah, okay, real cool," he sarcastically remarked, rolling his eyes, though neither Ed nor Edd noticed. "Okay, let's go home, Double Dee! We need to do the-"

"We can't," murmured Edd inaudibly. His grip tightened on the leather pilot's seat as he attempted to come to grips with the situation.

Eddy stared at him, his eyebrow raised higher, a questioning look smeared on his visage. He let out an exasperated huff and a slight, throaty growl of distaste. He was becoming impatient, as he always did. "Quit joking around, Double Dee, let's get outta-"

"_We can't!_" screamed Double Dee uncharacteristically, whirling around and staring at Eddy with a furious, shaken look in his eyes. He looked frightening, and Eddy slowly backed away, shocked – his friend's eyes were bloodshot, his teeth and fists clenched, his legs trembling – he was clearly undergoing a mix between stress and insanity. Not good – when Edd lost it, everything always seemed to fall apart. "_There's no time machine! Do you see a time machine? Because I surely don't!_"

This was definitely not normal. Eddy laughed nervously and began to make a slow, waving motion with his hands, trying to quell the storm inside his companion. "Uh, Double Dee?" he stammered nervously. "Calm down for a second…you're freaking me ou-"

"Calm down?_ How can I be calm at a time like this?!_" shrieked Edd, stomping his diminutive foot on the cold, metallic ground. "_Don't you see, Eddy? We're stuck! We're ten-thousand light-years away from the cul-de-sac with no way to get back! Does it look like I have the proper training to fly this ship and get us out of here? Don't you understand? We're stranded, stuck, marooned, trapped in outer space with no escape!_"

What was worse was that Edd had always been the _rational_ one.

Upon hearing this, Eddy had lost all fear of his enraged friend, and had now replaced it with a grand dose of anger. Now two of the three Eds were stricken with the "we're all going to die" virus. "You _gotta_ be _kidding_ me!" he barked, his temper rising exponentially, as well. "Well, guess who's fault it is, Sockhead? Yeah, it's yours!"

Ed, finished with his grand observation of the wonders spread out before him behind the glass, turned around and looked not at his two arguing companions, but at the sizeable, metallic, locker-like construct on their right. His curiosity getting the better of him once again, he headed past his companions and opened the locker, a wide, reverential smile growing across his face as he muttered to himself "Coooool…"

Edd was taken aback by Eddy's rather unfair and harsh accusation and promptly shot back, "_My fault?!_"

And Eddy counterattacked with a short and simple "_Yeah!_"

"_Really?_"

"_Yeah!_"

"_Really?_"

This circularly-traveling argument continued at this rate for a good minute, and the situation, thus, did not take a turn for the better. In fact, it probably would have gone on forever had it not been for an unprecedented interjection from Ed, whose existence they had become totally unaware of.

"Whoa, look at me!" he cried in self-reverence, prompting Edd and Eddy to stare at him in anger. They had been expecting to see him completely smothered in gravy or performing some sort of strange dance – however, they had not expected _this_.

What they were looking at had reminded them of the time when they were playing in the junkyard back in Peach Creek, pretending to be marooned Space Outlaws (as seen in the movies). They had been decked out in old, rattled tin "armor" and had wielded mundane, worn out kitchen appliances as weapons in order to fight off the evil Space Zombies of Zorg. However, this time, Ed had found a way to reenact this in a whole new light.

Despite the fact that he was ceaselessly guffawing at the time, Ed was now a truly intimidating sight. The first thing that Edd and Eddy noticed was the green, translucent, goggle-like apparatus he was wearing on his eyes – they were not like glasses, but instead appeared to be just…stuck to his face, almost. In fact, there were no borders on the "ski goggles", either – there was only a lens. Odd, but it seemed efficient for ventilation purposes.

The next thing that they had noticed was a rather sizeable, femur-sized object resting on his right arm – or rather, it seemed as if his entire forearm had fit into it as if it were some sort of glove. It had a metallic, grey look about it and was quite lustrous, and was, more or less, cylindrically shaped…the details of the apparatus were too complex to determine, but it appeared to have a hole of some kind at the end of it…it looked like some sort of cannon, from what they could discern.

Located on the back of Ed's left hand and extending down to his elbow was yet another strange, thin, and apparently metallic object. It did not look all that remarkable – kind of like half of a metallic sleeve worm on the back of his forearm, if Edd had to put it into words. Definitely a mysterious construct, to say the least.

Finally, Ed seemed to have discarded his casual, mundane footwear in favor of a new set of…boots, it looked like. Thin, black, and apparently metallic boots that seemed to fit just perfectly in accordance with Ed's shoe size had risen up to about the halfway point on his shins. Like the strange, cylindrical object that he wore on his right forearm, the details of this construct were complex, but they indeed look as if they were designed with the intent of making them look as technological as possible.

Ed threw his metallic construct-laden arms into the air and gawked at his friends, a hyperactive smile etched on his face, wearing what could have been deemed the "Space Outlaw Outfit version 2.0".

"I am Space Outlaw Ed!" he shouted proudly, his heavy voice rattling the metallic walls of the ship, his mind aflutter with thoughts of interstellar battle…how epic it would be! "Awaiting your orders, chief!"

The Eds' reactions were mixed – Eddy wore an expression of disdain and impatience, while Edd's eyes opened wide as he gazed out of the cockpit window at the derelict frigate, then at Ed's new "uniform", then back, then forth…

"What's with the getup, numbskull?" sneered Eddy, his eyebrows furrowed due to his annoyance. Perhaps he would have found it to be cool on another day, but today was just not…well, another day. "Will you quit fooling around? We have to figure out how-"

"Ed…you're a genius!"

July 9th, 2005: it would be remembered as the day when Edd had finally made a statement that had made absolutely _no_ sense whatsoever. The reason for this was a relatively simple one: the words "Ed" and "genius" had never once been used in conjunction in the history of man (save for the occasional discussion concerning Thomas _Ed_ison back in the 1700s). Eddy knew Ed was no genius, nor was he even of average intelligence – what was funny was that even Ed was fully aware of this fact.

"Ed's a…genius?" muttered Eddy, confusion spilling forth from his lips – for Edd to even concoct this proposal had made as much sense as local crybaby Jimmy defeating neighborhood jock Kevin in a bike race on a broken tricycle. "Yeah right – Ed couldn't find his way out of a cardboard box-"

"Don't you see, Eddy?" interrupted Edd, his anguished expression now reversed into one of distant hope, and, of course, revelation. "That derelict space craft outside must contain a _plethora_ of technologically-advanced apparatuses, and, if my assumptions are correct, a time machine may be one of them!"

Eddy, of course, did not see the sense that Edd was trying to make – in fact, he was so vague in his point that it would have even confused the most seasoned of rational thinkers. "Well, that's just great," replied Eddy rather sarcastically, though he still saw the logic in the presence of a time machine in a space station ten-thousand light-years away from their home. "But what the heck does _Ed_ have to do with anything?"

Edd did not respond initially – instead, he strolled over to the locker that Ed had accessed during his and Eddy's pointless argument and, with wide, hopeful eyes, opened it. A smile stretched across his face as his assumptions were affirmed. He turned to Eddy, stepping out of the way of the open containment system full of numerous models of the equipment that Ed was currently donning.

"He doesn't," reaffirmed Edd, contradicting his initial point. Eddy did not care, though, as he was too preoccupied with gawking jaw-droppedly at the wide selection of interstellar apparatuses inside the containment system. "But he did point us to the only modules that will _get us_ to that time machine!"

Ed lifted his arms high into the air once again in celebration. "I are smart, guys!" he pompously stated, now realizing that he was, in fact, and genius (when, in reality, he was, in fact, _not_). "I feel all tingly inside." He guffawed to himself silently as he grabbed his stomach with his only free hand – his left.

"Good _work_, Ed!" murmured Eddy, a now-contagious smile stretching across his face as he rubbed his hands together, trying to comprehend the scheme that Edd was trying to develop. Of course, as per usual, he utterly failed and had to consult the master. "So, uh, Double Dee…_why_ do we need all this junk?"

Edd, already fiddling around with the equipment stored in the locker, had, fortunately come to a few potentially useful conclusions. He was already wearing the same kind of green, all-lens "ski goggles" on his face and prodding the upper right side of it thoughtfully as he carefully scrutinized a sizeable cylindrical object roughly identical to the one that Ed was wearing on his right forearm.

"From what I can discern," began Edd in a contemplative voice as he rotated the surprisingly average-weighted cylinder in his right hand while peering through his "goggles". "These lenses seem to identify themselves as a 'visor'. This is fascinating…this 'visor' seems to have an…er…'energy-tracking' system, 'radar' apparatus…'environmental danger' sensor…and a 'scanning' component that I am using at the moment…

Well, this is fortunate!" he concluded, nodding as his eyes lit up with comprehension. His ever-curious nature had never failed him before, and it had not even now, in these seemingly hopeless times. "It appears that this visor acts as some sort of module that can perform functions that enable us to keep track of our life-force, environmental danger, as well as gather data from the surrounding area in the form of text…absolutely _stunning_!"

Eddy was, of course, baffled.

"Uh, so what you're saying is…er," he began, not comprehending any of the technological terminology that Edd was spewing out at him. Only when Edd whimsically tossed a green-colored, transparent visor his way (and upon hesitantly putting it on his face while feeling like a total geek), did he finally understand what the heck Edd was talking about. Basically, what Eddy now saw with his new visor equipped was what any video gamer would see on their oversized television screen when playing some sort of futuristic first-person shooter game. However, seeing as how none of the three Eds had ever had the opportunity to have a go at any kind of video game, this technology was all new to them. "This is pretty sweet, Double Dee!" he admitted in wonder, gazing at his surroundings through a whole new, data-ridden perspective.

Edd, now examining both the same cylindrical object as before as well as a metallic, black boot similar to the ones that Ed was currently wearing, had finally come to some logical conclusions. "I think I'm beginning to understand the functions of all of these constructs," he stated proudly as he looked back at the locker once more. "Just, put these on, Eddy, and I'll explain everything to you."

One by one, Edd began gently tossing a wide variety of futuristic equipment to Eddy while explaining their functions and how they could be operated. At first, these constructs seemed rather baffling, but Edd's descriptions and Eddy's mundane guesses concerning their nature had even Ed understanding how to use the equipment he was donned with.

First, the large, cylindrical and lustrous object that Edd had been scrutinizing for some time had been revealed to be known as an "arm cannon". Naturally, this apparatus was your stereotypical science fiction projectile weapon that, according to Edd's analysis, came equipped with a default function that his visor identified as a "Power Beam", as well as yet another setting that could make use of rather ambiguous-sounding "missiles" – the latter certainly sounded a bit more intimidating than the former. In all regards, it definitely seemed to be a weapon of some sort – an interstellar gun – that would serve as an effective offensive device…given that they would have to make use of it.

The sleek, metallic object that Eddy clamped onto the back of his left arm was apparently known as a "Grapple Beam" – at least, this is what the data displayed on Edd's visor had stated after close scrutinizing. Apparently, with a flick of wrist, this device would produce some sort of…well, "energy beam", whatever that was, that would extend to and latch onto a given point in the environment. Not even expert analyst Edd could determine exactly what the data meant by this vague description – apparently it was something, much like the arm cannon, that needed to be tested in action before it could be truly understood.

Much more comprehensible were the sleek, metallic black boots that Edd and Eddy slid onto their feet – and much less deadly in comparison with the arm cannon and Grapple Beam. According to the data Edd had read off of his visor, they seemed to be identified as "space-jump boots". Minding the ridiculous-sounding name that was obviously ripped-off from some science fiction film, their function seemed self-explanatory enough: apparently they aided in acrobatic movement, reducing fatigue in the lower extremities as well as increasing one's ability to jump. If this was indeed correct, then it was fortunate that they had found them, for Edd had never been the athletic type…at all.

Now each Ed was clad in this new array of metallic equipment, feeling quite ridiculous but more courageous as a result (save for Ed – all he felt was a constant surge of excitement and eagerness in his new guise). However, Edd had never answered Eddy's query concerning the necessity of these constructs, and he would have asked once more had Edd not gotten around to the point himself.

"Now, pay attention, you two," stated Edd, holding out his arm and pointing his pointer finger skyward (or rather, spaceward), attempting to make a commanding gesture – if Ed and Eddy did not understand what he was about to say, they were not going to get anywhere. "We are located trillions of miles away from the cul-de-sac, am I right?" He glared at Ed and Eddy questioningly, as if he was demanding a response to this seemingly rhetorical question.

"Well it's all Ed's fa-" muttered Eddy under his breath before Edd quickly cut him off, trying to avoid any further conflict.

"Apparently, the space station that this…well, let's call it a ship…is presently residing on was recently attacked – at least, that is what my visor is telling me," he continued, looking out the window at the seemingly derelict frigate, squinting his eyes. "I do not know what kind of conflict went on in there, but I know this: if there _is_ indeed a time machine present in that ship, and there should be no reason why there would not be, there will most likely be-"

"Horrible space mutants from the planet Cabbage!" proposed Ed out of nowhere, stating what he had hoped to be the case. Unfortunately for Edd and Eddy, he was, in some ambiguous way, correct.

"Well, some biological threat, at least," reasoned Edd, shaken from the unexpected outburst from his ever-rambunctious companion. "I'm only proposing that we take the necessary precautions in our search inside this spacecraft…or whatever it is."

Eddy, upon hearing this, let out an exasperated sigh – he did not want to believe any of this was happening, but apparently, he had to go with the flow. "So let me get this straight," he began, looking at Edd with a tired expression – this was not in his daily plans, that was for sure. "We're going in _there_ dressed like idiots, and you're saying that there might be something in there that will probably eat us alive?"

Edd nodded – to be brutally honest, Eddy was correct in every regard. "Well, I'm only guessing about the life form aspect of it, Eddy," he corrected, trying to keep his friend's hopes up, but ultimately failing. "I mean, life cannot exist anywhere besides our own planet…don't be _silly_, Eddy!"

Eddy let out another sigh of exhaustion and annoyance. "Guh, _fine_," he groaned in disgust, not having it in him to argue with Edd about the possibility of being ingested by horrible aliens from another planet. He did not believe in the existence of aliens as much as Ed most likely did, but still, nothing had proven to be within the ordinary on _this_ day. "We'll go check the place out. You _better_ be right about this, Sockhead!"

Edd smiled as he fumbled around inside the locker that had held all of their equipment beforehand (and was now nearly empty), producing three small objects that resembled those masks that dentists usually wore when dealing with patients. Of course, these objects looked to be of a plastic nature instead of a papery one, and had small holes punched into a fine layer of glass resting on it. "Thank you, Eddy," he sighed, relieved that he had successfully convinced his stubborn friend to venture into the unknown – he knew he did not even have to try with Ed. He tossed a "mask" to each of his friends upon stating this. "Now, please put these on, gentlemen – if my visor is correct, these masks will allow us to breathe as we travel from this ship to the entrance of the space station."

And so the Eds donned their masks, wearing them over their mouths and appropriately feeling like interstellar dentists…or something of the sort. Of course, the ever-dimwitted Ed had instead placed the apparatus over his nose, announced that he was a chicken, and was immediately verbally attacked by Eddy until he was forcibly persuaded to properly place it over his mouth.

After this mindless and unprecedented fooling around, the three Eds had walked to the starboard of the ship, and positioned themselves directly under the circular hatch in the ceiling, as per Edd's instructions. Apparently, and unexpectedly, it _was_ a motion-operated device – it had begun to churn, making grinding sounds as it began to sluggishly unclamp. It seemed as if it had not been used in a very, very long time and was trying to remember how to function after all that time.

Edd looked at his companions standing to his immediate right and exhaled deeply, a nervous smile stretched across his face, perspiration slowly streaming down his cheeks. "Well, gentlemen," he slowly stated in a tone that would give one the impression that he was reciting his final words. "Once we're outside, we'll be in outer space. I'll point us in the direction of the entrance – it's not too far, but it would be best if we were quick about getting there."

Eddy shrugged in agreement, relatively apathetic about the whole situation – in truth, he had no idea what to think. He just wanted to be home, running his scam as he had intended to…he had not expected any of this, and still did not want to believe it. "You _better_ be right about this, Double Dee," he sighed with an aggravated tone in his voice, glaring at his friend out of the corner of his eyes. "I _told _you I'm afraid of space."

This last, seemingly random statement had caused Edd to look down at his significantly stouter companion with a confused gaze – where had _this _come from? "Er…you never told me _that_," he claimed, suddenly puzzled and distracted from the slowly-opening metallic hatch operating above them. "How can you possibly be afraid of space if we-"

"My name is Ed!" shouted Ed in excitement, looking up through the now fully-open hatch into the blackness of space that awaited him and his two friends. "_Woohoo!_"

And with that final exclamation of excitement and anticipation of adventure, Ed, Edd and Eddy were instantly sucked out of the mysterious ship and directly into the vacuum of deep space, screaming all the while. They were headed to the seemingly derelict space station that was presently spread out before them in search of a time machine within its unknown chambers.

But first, they needed to brave the weightlessness of outer space.


	3. The Space Pirates

**_Chapter Three_**

**_The Space Pirates_**

They had expected it to feel…well, emptier, to say the least.

Empty space, they had presumed, was supposed to be comprised of nothing - no fluid substance or resistance should have been what they were feeling at the moment. However, approximately ten seconds after they were jettisoned from the ship that they had been contained in for the past fifteen minutes, they realized that their estimations had proven to be false. In fact, they did not go drifting out into the blackness of space as they had expected – instead, they slowly sailed in a more-or-less distinct parabola toward the metallic grating that served as the surface of a rather massive walkway which extended toward what appeared to be the entrance of the frigate. With a distinct and rather humorous-sounding _doof_, the three Eds fell softly, yet still face-first, on the cold metal surface.

Instead of instinctively trying to sit up and rub their slightly sore visages, the three Eds stayed down – and by "stayed down", this meant "_stayed down_." They tightly gripped the metal grating that served as the surface of the walkway leading to the entrance of the frigate, fearing that they would float off into space at an alarming rate if they had let go. Edd and Eddy had begun to sweat even more intensively now, though the salty drops, instead of trickling down the sides of their faces, began to float off slowly into the distance.

Three suburban pre-teenagers were in outer space high above an unknown planet, clinging onto a metal grating that was part of an unknown space station for their lives – who could blame them for their intense feelings of fright?

Ed, on the other hand, was too preoccupied with staring at the endless chasm of space visible through the grating with gawking, wonder-stricken eyes to worry about such trivial bodily functions such as sweat…or urination, for that matter. Fortunately, the Eds all had their "masks" covering their mouths and noses, otherwise they would have been deceased by now…likely due to the lack of oxygen present in outer space, or perhaps due to the fact that the stench of Ed's pee may have knocked them out. It was because of these masks that the Eds could not converse with each other, and instead had to rely on physical motion in order to communicate.

Edd knew that, even though they had felt a bit more secure in clinging onto the floor while exposed to the endless vacuum of space, he and his companions were not going to make much progress if they did not move. There was only one option for them now: walking, albeit _very slowly_, to the entrance of the derelict frigate. Then again, even he was too frightened of what would happen if he or his friends would have let go of the grating – even he did not understand the more complex physics concerning the nature of the cosmos.

At the same time, attempting to see how far ahead the entrance of the frigate was, Edd and Eddy slowly lifted their faces from the cold grating and hesitantly looked ahead. Instantly they were relieved – there seemed to be a sizeable, metallic, hexagonally-shaped door-liked structure with a light-blue glow about it waiting for them about twenty feet away. It seemed to be attached to the larger part of the station, signifying that it was most likely the entrance that they were looking for (though they did exhibit a slight fear that it might lead them to an interstellar outhouse).

Just then, something had entered their field of vision…from their right, to be precise – from what they could discern, it seemed to be relatively slow moving and…was wearing a dark, faded green jacket.

"_Ed! Stop!_" screamed Edd and Eddy inaudibly upon spotting Ed running across the walkway, apparently in slow-motion due to the almost non-existent gravitational force, and toward the entrance of the station. The blathering fool had no concept of the nature of space whatsoever – he could have begun floating upward into infinity at any moment!

Panicking, Edd tried, with all his intellectual might, to concoct a quick solution to save his friend from potentially drifting off into space. However, Eddy had other, less conceptual plans, and, acting on an ever-characteristic impulse, pushed off of the grating with his feet, propelling himself through space – however, he performed this at an angle that actually allowed him to slowly "fly" through the "air" straight _toward_ Ed instead of straight up into space.

Two acts of stupidity in a row – yet another world record!

Edd inaudibly screamed in terror again as he, now abandoning all logical thought in favor of impulse, quickly rose to his feet (well, as quickly as the non-fluidity of space would allow) and began to run with all speed toward Eddy, who was now sailing toward Ed with surprising speed. Everything seemed to move in slow motion – movement in outer space appeared to be synonymous with underwater movement…except this experience seemed to be _much_ more frightening.

The chain reaction that occurred within the next ten seconds was both incredibly dim-witted in nature, yet remarkably beautiful from a machinists' standpoint.

First, Ed had turned around with the intention of waving to his friends and telling them that it was safe to follow him – however, before he could do this, he noticed Eddy swiftly traveling toward his face at a surprising speed. Eddy, with a horror-stricken expression on his face, screamed in fright as he flew toward Ed's monobrowed face, and, with a gut-wrenching _thoomp_, crashed head-first into Ed's visage.

The sickening impact had two results: it had sent Eddy slowly drifting off in the opposite direction, _toward endless space_, to be exact (while screaming, naturally), and left Ed in a daze, laughing moronically whilst silently shouting "Hi, Eddy!"

At that point, it had taken Ed an unnaturally miniscule amount of time to realize that his best friend was now slowly drifting off into oblivion. Thus, he reacted by pointlessly screaming "_Whoa, Eddy, you're not supposed to fly until you've had your breakfast, mister!_" and swiftly grabbed onto Eddy's right ankle with his left hand. However, the forward thrust of his arm had caused the rest of his body to start floating off of the walkway, as well, _toward space_. That was when he also silently shouted "Whoa, _I am flying, Double Dee!_"

Edd, naturally, did not hear him (the sci-fi movie slogan "in space, no one can hear you scream" had, ironically, not occurred to Ed), though at this point, all three of the Eds were silently screaming in panic, despite the conditions. Being the only one still present _on_ the walkway, he noticed that Ed's hand was, fortunately, right in front of his face – this was his chance to act!

Thinking quickly, he grabbed onto Ed's hand (fortunately, he did not have to reach upward, but only straight ahead), and, with great exertion, especially for one with _his_ lack of physical strength, pulled the chain of Eds toward the entrance. Since he did not reach out to save Ed, he did not float outward as they had, and therefore saved himself as well as his companions. He pulled with all of his might, nearing the door at a slow but steady pace, a strained expression stretched across his face – he gritted his teeth and sweat intensely as he made progress.

Eddy stared in utter disbelief at Edd's surprising stamina and strength, given the fact that Ed and Eddy were, combined, rather heavy. However, this was probably due to the fact that, in space, weight does not exist, as there is no source of gravity. Ed gawked wide-eyed at Edd, as well, as the latter finally reached the fortunately automated door, silently cheering him on.

Then, with one, final and strained shout of anguish, Edd quickly pulled his friends through the three-by-three foot entrance of the space station, letting go once they were overhead and sending them hurtling down the metal-ridden corridor in which they were now located.

Edd's left arm had gone practically numb and, thus, did not sting with pain just yet. However, he did notice that he had not fallen to the ground yet, and, upon realizing this, looked at where his feet should have been, only to see that he was now floating at about mid-level in the six-foot tall hallway. Apparently, there was no gravity present here, either – this was reaffirmed when he looked behind him at the other end of the hallway and spotted a rather unusual sight.

To be honest, Edd was in fact looking down the cold, steel-walled hallway and only spotting several small floating segments of random metallic debris…as well as what appeared to be a doorway of some sort – however, he did not see either Ed or Eddy, at least from this distance. Taking advantage of the apparent lack of gravity, Edd began to "swim" down the hallway until he eventually reached the doorway…where there _used _to be a door. Apparently, Ed and Eddy had crashed into the automated portal with such force that it was forcibly opened, thus transforming it into a ragged piece of scrap metal that still somehow managed to operate efficiently enough.

Fearing for the safety of his friends, Edd proceeded to swim through the doorway and into the next, identical-looking hallway. Apparently, his friends _had_ crashed right through the door, for, at the moment, they were both floating in midair in the middle of the hallway, with Eddy strangling Ed violently - naturally, the latter was enjoying it, laughing inaudibly at the experience of being strangled in a space station light-years away from Earth.

"This is _fun_!"

_Crash!_

"_Ouch!_"

Judging by the fact that the Eds had finally regained the ability to hear each other as well as the fact that all three of them had fallen to the floor and landed flat on their backs against the cold, metallic floor, it seemed apparent that gravity had returned. Rubbing his back as he slowly sat up, a confused Edd looked behind him in search of an explanation. Apparently, the "broken" door that he had just passed through seemed to be functional enough to completely close, thereby pressurizing the room and allowing the Eds to breathe, hear, and maneuver as if they were on any other planet.

One by one, the Eds slowly rose to their feet, attempting to orient themselves after the five-minute ordeal outside, failing repeatedly until one full minute later.

"_That was fun!_" exclaimed Ed, removing his mask and inserting it into one of his ever-mysterious coat pockets while looking at his friends, extreme excite present in his eyes. "It was _just like_ in the movies – 'cept we were Space Outlaws, not astrotonauts."

Since it seemed apparent that the environment was relatively breathable, Edd and Eddy followed suit with the mask-removal, as well. "'That's 'astronauts', Ed," corrected Ed, beating his left arm against his side, trying to return feeling to it after the…strange occurrence outside. "And _please_, try not to be so reckless…we could have ended up drifting forever into-"

"Whatever, Double Dee," interjected Eddy, rubbing his forehead in pain as he backed away toward the other end of the hallway, still in relative shock from the impact he had experienced a few minutes ago with Ed's forehead – he had learned the hard way that Ed's skull was as durable as _stone_. "Ugh, my head…Ed's too dim-witted to learn…_or_ pronounce "astrotonauts"."

Edd winced at the mispronunciation.

"Still, you were right, Ed!" admitted Eddy, breaking out in sudden laughter as the automated door behind him opened as he neared it – he was unaware of this. "That zero gravity stuff was-_gah!_"

Eddy was cut off upon realizing that he had just stepped backward into the beginning of a downward staircase – instantly losing his balance, he fell backward and tumbled violently down the stairs, shouting and grunting in pain as his face and back repeatedly struck the cold steel. With great velocity he ricocheted off the final step and was sent hurtling, in a parabolic fashion, in to a rather sizeable object…it seemed quite soft and had effectively cushioned the impact, fortunately. Still, he ached all over and let out one final shout of discomfort as he grabbed at his spine.

Characteristically, Ed and Edd had pursued him down the stairway, an expression of worry present on Edd's face and one of relative cluelessness on Ed's. "Eddy, are you alright?!" cried Edd with concern in his voice, running toward his surprisingly unfortunate companion with an outstretched hand, intending to help him up after such a fall. However, upon catching sight of the school bus-sized object positioned behind Eddy, he had stopped in his tracks and had slapped his outstretched hand over his mouth to prevent himself from screaming. Ed was also characteristically speechless upon seeing the same thing, though it looked like he could have shouted something along the lines of "cool!" at any moment.

Eddy gawked at his friends with a confused expression on his face, wondering what in the world could have been so strange. He was about to ask his friends what he was currently resting his back upon when he decided to take the risk of standing up, backing away, and turning around in order to see it for himself.

Eddy instantly broke out in a scream of disgust.

Apparently, he had collided into what appeared to be a school bus-sized, heavily bloated insect of some kind, which appeared to be lying on its back, seemingly deceased. What was more disgusting and caused each Ed to back away was the fact that this gigantic, cockroach-like, dark brown bug was both rotting and encompassed in a pillar of flames (save for the section of its body that Eddy had crashed into). Its massive, hair-tipped legs were raised limply into the air, to further the assumption that it was indeed dead.

At that point, Ed had felt something moving around in his green jacket…it seemed to be surprisingly large, about half his size and weight. "Haha, that tickles!" he guffawed as he reacted by reaching into his jacket, fumbling around, and pulling out the scurrying creature by the ankle. Apparently, Eddy had been so frightened and disgusted at the sight of the house-sized insect (as well as the fact that he had _touched_ it) that he had reacted by turning around and diving into Ed's jacket for protection. "

Hi, Eddy!" he greeted upon letting a quivering Eddy down on his feet. "Look at the big space bug! It's so handsome…like the one in 'Thok: Invader of the Planet Fingernails: The Sequel'!"

Edd, similarly to Eddy, was in a state of shock – he had _never_ imagined a living insect to be this gigantic in size! "Look…at the size of that arthropod…" he stammered in both wonder and disgust as his eyes soaked in the image he was now perceiving in front of him. "What could have caused such a state of growth...now that I think of it, what could have caused its untimely death…_oh my word!_"

Eddy had noticed it too – the entire room was apparently engulfed in a blazing inferno. In fact, e_verything _was in flames...as if a propane tank – or at least five or more of them - had exploded simultaneously. A walkway on the right side of the room seemed to be in shambles, utterly destroyed by randomly falling debris. The high-reaching walls seemed to have previously housed apparatuses that looked similar to stereotypical escape pods, though most of them were either already ejected from the station or simply engulfed in fire. There were some parts of the chamber that seemed traversable, notably one section leading around the deceased insect and to the other side of the room, but everything else was barricaded by a blazing wall.

_Crash!_ A thick, leg-sized, flaming pipe fell down from the ceiling and crashed on the floor a few feet to the left of the Eds. This was enough to prompt quick action – now they were scared for their lives (except for Ed, who was thoroughly enjoying every moment of this).

"_Let's get out of here!_" shouted Eddy, his voice quaking as he ran for the non-combustible pathway that lead around the massive arthropod, his two companions closely following him. The ever-growing wall of flames seemed to reach at them as they stumbled their way through the uncomfortably narrow passage and toward yet another automated door located several feet behind the dead insect.

"_Run, fellows!_" cried Edd as they ducked through the automated door, which had opened at such a slow rate that Eddy might have crashed headlong into it had it not activated just in time. Luckily, they were able to make it through – unluckily, they were unable to stop running due to their extreme level of fright. Thus, they kept running and running down the hallway.

That was when Edd had spotted something up ahead, though unfortunately, he had noticed it a bit too late – in the middle of the hallway in which they were currently sprinting there appeared to be a sizeable blockade comprised of random metallic debris simply lying there, and it looked incredibly durable. However, they were already running much too fast to slow down, and, thus, instead of proposing that the three of them quickly cease running, he simply just screamed and shielded his face with his durable arm cannon – Eddy did the same. Ed, obviously, did not.

Contrary to what Edd and Eddy had initially predicted, and by some freak accident of physics, the combined momentum of all three Eds running in unison had allowed them to effectively _crash through_ the thick, metallic blockade and, maintaining such an incredible combined force, it also allowed them to crash through the automated door, thoroughly shattering it to small fragments of metal and wire.

However, this velocity did not allow them to crash through the wall at the end of the smaller, circularly-shaped chamber that was behind the door that used to be in existence. Thus, they ended their manic charge with a gut-wrenching _crash_ against yet another cold, steel wall.

The Eds, upon striking the wall, immediately bounced backward and promptly fell to the floor, slamming their backs against a similarly frigid metal surface. Particularly, as Ed fell (seeing as how he was on the far left of the group's "formation"), his left hand had struck a conveniently-placed lever protruding out of the wall beside him. Lying on the floor with sore faces, legs, and backs, the relatively exhausted group gazed at the imaginary stars that were presently orbiting their heads (which, of course, Ed had promptly commented on as being "pretty").

At that point, they had attempted to rise to their feet, but were struck back down by a sudden jolt in the floor, followed by a loud _clanging _sound. Before they could discern precisely what was going on, the floor began descending down what appeared to be a shaft that extended to lower parts of the station. Apparently, they were in an elevator of some sort, and apparently, it was not in flames.

Deciding to remain flat on the elevator floor, Eddy turned to Edd, panting with exhaustion and soreness. "Hey, Double Dee?" he asked through heavy breaths in a rather sarcastic, cheesed-off tone. "Guess what? I haven't seen any _time machine yet!_"

Edd was characteristically shocked at this remark and stared at Eddy with furrowed eyebrows. "Eddy, did you really expect me to look for a time machine in that blazing inferno?!" he questioned, also relatively cheesed-off at both the group's current situation as well as Eddy's mind-grating impatience. "I, for one, was more concerned with escaping with my life, thank you very much!"

"Face it, Double Dee!" shot back Eddy, his teeth clenched. "You almost got us fried in that oven, you didn't find a time machine yet…your plan stinks!"

Amidst the argument, the elevator had finally slowed to a stop and reached the lower level with a metallic _clink_-ing sound. At that point, the Eds were able to find balance once again, though Ed was an obvious exception – he laughed heartily as he kept tripping repeatedly while trying to stand.

"_I wanna do that again!_" he cried, obviously referring to the epic charge that he and his friends had made when escaping a fiery death a few chambers ago.

Upon hearing this, Eddy thought of turning around, facing his friend, and screaming "_No!_", also considering strangling him in the progress – however, Edd had already interjected, signaling toward yet another automated door, this one positioned a few feet in front of them.

"Gentlemen, I believe the sooner we continue our exploration of this death trap of a frigate, the sooner we return to the cul-de-sac," he proposed, perfectly aware of the dangerous situations he and his friends might face along the way. "As long as we work as a team, we can get through this." Though Ed had an obvious lack of mental capacity to do so, and even though Eddy still showed prominent signs of stubbornness, they both agreed with Edd and passed through the door cautiously.

Yet another hall filled to the brim with large sheets and scraps of metal and random debris had been awaiting them at the other side of the portal – in fact, as the Eds continued to travel further and further into the space station, they came to notice that nearly every hallway was near-impassible – this became annoyingly redundant, to say the least. However, they had always devised some way of passing the obstructions, some solutions including simply sidling around the debris or using Ed as a battering ram to crash through it. Fire, obviously, was a common element in nearly every chamber they came across; this space station was, as Edd had stated before, a true death-trap.

The Eds began to doubt that they would ever find a time machine _here_.

* * *

"Eddy, hold on," stammered Edd as they passed through yet another automatic door after about ten minutes of fruitless searching. He dropped down next to the doorway, sitting up against the wall and wiping the sweat off of his brow. "I need to rest – I'm afraid my physical capabilities are not suited for this kind of strenuous work." His arm cannon fell to his side, hitting the cool metallic ground with a distinct _clang_.

They had walked onto what appeared to be a sizeable second-floor balcony of a biotechnological laboratory that stretched off to the left, then upward to the north of the room. The laboratory below, from what the Eds could see, contained several massive, zoo-grade cryogenic tanks attached to even larger tanks protruding from the ceiling (possibly their power source), the contents of which were more or less unknown. A simple walk across the U-shaped balcony would possibly have led them into another chamber, but they needed to wait for Edd first.

Eddy groaned in impatience once again – he was tired of these strenuous games. "Come _on_, Sockhead!" he complained as his eyebrows furrowed. "Jeez, can't you be a little more useful? Look at Ed, he's fine."

And he was, and seemed to be occupied with trying to identify something over one the other side of the balcony, approximately ten feet away from them. He was probably trying to find yet another massive insect similar to the one he and the others had seen before, but with no luck.

Still, Ed could have _sworn _he was seeing something move toward the corner…

"We're not going to get home if we don't keep looking!" ranted Eddy at the exhausted Edd, who was appropriately paying him no mind. "_Get up!_ Are you even listening to-"

_Pow!_

While Eddy had been shouting at his friend, something had suddenly flown through the air and had nearly missed Ed's head by an inch. Eddy had not seen it, and Ed was too preoccupied with staring at the source of the blast to see it, either – however, Edd had seen it in time to identify what it was, and upon doing so, he promptly stood up in shock. A fist-sized, bright-red circular projectile had just fired through the air at near-blinding speed and almost hit Ed right in the face. There had also been a distinct "firing" sound that had accompanied its launch.

Ed had almost been shot by something.

Eddy quickly turned around in order to see where this firing sound came from and saw that Ed was bearing his arm cannon toward the end of the balcony ahead of them, just before the corner, shouting "Evil Space Mutant!" Edd and Eddy's eyes fell upon the source of the blast…and they, too, shouted in shock and pointed their arm cannons at it in horror.

A seven-foot tall humanoid was standing about eight feet away from the Eds, bearing similar-looking arm cannon at them threateningly. Now _this, _as unbelievable as it had seemed, was a genuine alien, as they had seen in Ed's sizeable collection of comic books. It appeared to be a cross between a human and a lizard, standing relatively erect and decked in what appeared to be some sort of dark-grey-colored armor suit. Its other visible hand, as well as its feet, were both large and long, and its fingers and toes about the length of Eddy's forearm, from what they could see. From this distance, they could see that it had glowing, yellow-colored eyes as well as a lack of a distinct nose. Finally, it appeared as if it was the owner of a mouth full of sharp teeth as well as a terrifying, guttural roar, which it promptly emitted upon being spotted.

The Eds and the alien simply stared each other down, about eight feet separating them from each other, bearing their arm cannons threateningly. Although Ed was embroiled in the unerupted conflict with this hostile being from another world, both Edd and Eddy were scared out of their minds. Then, after about eight uneventful seconds had passed by, Eddy had finally found the words necessary in order to state his query.

"…_How the heck do you shoot this freakin' arm cannon?!_" he shouted in panic, waving his arm cannon from side to side and slapping it with his other hand. Edd, also unsure, followed suit by jiggling it and trying to find a trigger-like apparatus on it, but to no avail.

"I don't know…_I don't know, Eddy!_" screamed Edd, slowly backing away from the alien, which had now begun to limp its way toward them, still brandishing its arm cannon at the three Eds. _Wait,_ thought Edd amidst his panic. _That life form is limping…something must have wounded it before we arrived…_

The alien had gotten to the point where it was now about four feet away from the Eds – not only was it frighteningly tall, but it also smelled quite rank. That and it scared the heck out of them, even the interstellar warrior Ed, who was still only bearing his cannon at the mutant space beast. Edd, at this point, had given up in his attempts to utilize his arm cannon and instead was using it as a shield for his face, and Eddy was too busy biting his in anger to even try. The interstellar beast then pointed his arm cannon directly at Ed and fixed its aim, letting out an exponentially-growing growl as it did so. It prepared to fire…

"_Prepare to meet your maker, Space Monster!_" bellowed Ed heroically and dramatically as his arm cannon suddenly unleashed a rapid barrage of fist-sized, yellow-colored glowing energy blasts at the extraterrestrial being, effectively blasting straight through its epidermal layer, puncturing its torso in at least twenty different spots, and sending it toppling backward several feet before, with a long, pained, bellowing roar, it collapsed on its back against the cold, metallic floor, apparently and thoroughly dead.

All three Eds stood motionless for about twenty seconds, all with thoroughly shocked expressions stretched across their faces. This was truly unbelievable – these three, fairly ordinary suburban pre-teenagers had just been the first humans to ever encounter an alien of any sort…what was more, they had destroyedit_…killed_ it.

Ed then felt something grab his left shoulder, causing him to turn around and face a thoroughly awed Eddy, who was still gawking at the corpse of the alien. "Nice _shot_, Ed…" he complimented slowly, almost at a loss for words. "How…the _heck_ did you do _that_?"

Snapping out of his post-annihilation trance rather quickly, Ed quickly developed a pompous smile and assumed a rather heroic stance. "Oh, it was easy, Eddy!" he declared, pointing his arm cannon in the opposite direction, toward the wall that was behind the alien. "I just looked at the evil space monster dead in the eye and said 'I am E-'"

_Pow!_

Without warning, another bright, fist-sized yellow blast of circular energy came from Ed's arm cannon, traveling as quickly as a bullet and striking the wall, leaving a luminescent, yellow stain on it. Edd probably would have suggested that it was composed of plasma-oriented substances and such, but surprisingly said nothing on the matter of the beam itself. Ed and Eddy simply stared at their arm cannons, still unenlightened on how they truly functioned.

"The cannons fire single energy bursts upon extending your pointer finger when your fist is clenched," came Edd's voice as he passed the other two Eds, prodding the upper right corner of his visor as he approached the alien that Ed had thoroughly destroyed, a look of both disgust and curiosity on his face. "If you keep it outstretched, a volley of blasts will be the result." He gazed at the alien from behind his green-colored visor analytically, as if he were trying to identify it – in reality, he appeared to be scanning it with his ever-useful scan visor.

Eddy looked back at his dual-d'd friend with a puzzled expression. "And how the heck do you know that, Sockhead?" he questioned, becoming frustrated due to the increase in concepts that he did not understand. Ed, however, was content with not understanding _anything_ whatsoever.

"The scan visor is quite a useful apparatus, Eddy," he replied, preoccupied with his analysis of the evil, dead space mutant. "Ed, if this analytical data is accurate, and from my experience I am almost certain that it is, you have just killed this already-wounded 'Space Pirate'."

Ed, in characteristic response, jumped into the air with an extreme feeling of excitement. "Evil Space Pirates, Double Dee!" he randomly shouted with gusto before returning to the ground and scratching his monobrow.

Eddy, however, was significantly less impressed, and showed it visibly by crossing his arms and raising one eyebrow in a questioning manner. "'Space Pirate'?" he queried with a you've-got-to-be-kidding-me tone in his gravelly voice. "What kind of a name is _that_? Jeez, even the aliens that _aren't_ in the movies are lame…"

Edd, at that point, had finished tinkering with his visor and had turned to his companions. "If my assumptions are accurate, I believe that there may be even more of these 'Space Pirates' infesting this ruined space station," he estimated, voicing his concern. "In short, gentlemen…we are not alone."

The oft-expressed and rather clichéd phrase caused Eddy to cringe with worry and Ed to grin with excitement - they were now dealing with real-life, non-fictional _aliens_.

"Then let's find that time machine thing before we get turned into alien food!" suggested Eddy as he began walking toward the door located at the other end of the curved walkway, now relatively enthused to get the heck out of the vicinity and away from this new biological threat that could potentially end their lives. "Come on, Ed!"

Ever-obedient, Ed followed Eddy as he passed, muttering "Freaky space aliens, Double Dee!" with an exuberant laugh. Edd, sighing with exhaustion though now relatively racked with fright, followed suit.

And so on they pressed, delving deeper into the thoroughly ruined frigate as they searched high and low for a time machine, or any similar apparatus, for that matter, that might allow them to return to their home. However, despite their excruciating efforts, they did not succeed in their search, and, despite Ed's ever-jovial mood due to the fact that he and his friends were now placed in a science fiction-like scenario, the group's morale was now dropping to a dangerously low level.

Their twenty-minute search had eventually led the Eds into yet another biological laboratory of rather immense size, containing two distinct levels – they were located on the first floor, from what they could determine. The room had contained one, fifteen foot tall cryogenic tank, behind which was what seemed to be a wall-less elevator that led to the walkway above. Additionally, the walls seemed to be lined with other, non-translucent storage tanks – Edd had imagined that they contained a variety of different creatures, but they seemed unidentifiable. What were identifiable, though, were the contents of the massive cryogenic tank located near the elevator.

"Coo-hool!" muttered Ed upon noticing the seemingly frozen creature in the tank, trying to come up with a science fiction movie to relate it to. Before he could, though, Eddy had interjected with a comment of his own.

"What is _with _this place and _giant bugs_?!" shouted Eddy in disgust, trying to block the creature from his field of vision by lifting his arm cannon in front of his face (when he could have just as easily looked away). "It's like its trying to make me gag or something!"

What the Eds were gawking at was, or at least it seemed to be, an incredibly, almost sickly thin version of the deceased insect that they had seen before – the fact that it was seemingly devoid of a definable layer of skin had been its most defining feature. Needless to say, it was perhaps the largest skeleton the Eds had ever seen, and its admittedly monstrous figure, complete with a prominent rib cage, its head that was primarily comprised of a gaping mouth full of razor-sharp teeth, and its bloated insectoid figure was what made this creature both quite bizarre and sickening to behold. Though Ed had paid no mind to the grotesqueness of the beast – the sheer unbelievability of this creature was what made it a magnificent sight from his perspective.

Thus, Ed duly stated, "Whoa…cool!" with an additional "It looks like the beetle mutant from 'Galaxy Cruisers: A Mission on the Sun'!"

And so Ed and Eddy continued to gawk at the beast in all aspects, including wonder, disgust, and fright, and Eddy began to wonder what sort of sick image he was branding into his mind and why the heck he was staring at it for so long. Then came the obligatory question that had become quite common in their venture thus far: "Where's Double Dee? I bet he'd think this is _sooooo_ _intriguing…_"

"You are correct, Eddy," came Edd's voice from the elevator located just beside the sizeable cryogenic tank, prodding his visor whilst gazing at the overblown specimen, then at a series of turquoise-screened terminals laid out before it, then back to the specimen once again. "Though this arthropod is quite massive considering the extensive famillae that _I've _studied, what strikes me as astounding is the fact that this was, in fact, _not_ it's original size."

Eddy was stumped, obviously, and so was Ed (even more obviously) – Edd did not need to be an emotional analyst to infer that.

Thus he continued his dissertation. "According to my scan visor, the Space Pirates, similar to the foul creature that we encountered some time ago, have recently begun a 'mutagenic program' of some sort, allowing them to modify specimens such as simple beetles into monstrosities such as these, most likely increasing exoskeleton durability, overall dexterity in the limbs, and whatnot."

Ed and Eddy's overall stumpage had remained intact – their confused and confounded stares pierced through Edd's soul like a kitchen knife through melted ice cream (which, in fact, sounded pretty appetizing right now, though Edd had always preferred his ice cream in a _solid_ state).

"The Space Pirates are _mutating_ these poor animals into these hideous monstrosities, gentlemen!" explained Edd, trying to evoke some form of comprehension in them – he thoroughly succeeded, of course, for Ed had always been a fan of fictional mutations, and nonfictional ones sounded much more exciting.

"The 'how' and the 'why' are still a mystery to me, though, as my scan visor does not seem to be able to infer _that _data…" he muttered as he prodded the upper right side of his visor thoughtfully as his two companions listened on, their interest piqued. "Oh, and it might interest you to know that we are presently located on the Space Pirate Frigate _Orpheon_, currently in orbit above the terrestrial planet of Tallon IV."

Eddy's mouth hung open in disbelief and, obviously, fright upon hearing this last morsel of information. "You mean…we're on a _Space Pirate _ship?!" he stammered, his voice rising as he came to this horrid realization. This was completely unprecedented – in the movies that he had seen in the past, the heroes almost never made it off of the alien warships alive…would this ordeal have a similar outcome?

Ed, on the contrary, jumped for joy before heading over to the elevator at which Edd was situated, clapping his left hand against his arm cannon in some form of applause. "Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!" he repeated excitedly, totally unaware of the dangers to which they were now exposed. "Ed must see the evil Space Pirate base and gross mutated monsters!"

Ignoring his friend's jovial, science-fiction-based rantings, Eddy hesitantly submitted and joined his friends on the elevator (which seemed automatic, for upon stepping on it, it lifted the group upward and onto the upper walkway).

"So, if this is a Space Pirate ship," began Eddy as the trio stepped off of the elevator and made their way across the walkway that circled around the room, whose wall was lined with more closed-off specimen containment tanks. "There's gotta be some big techanologicical stuff around, which _means_ there's gotta be a time machine…right, Double Dee?"

Edd, though not completely certain of the entire time machine situation and relatively ticked off by Eddy's constant mispronunciations, had to admit that the idea was appealing to some degree. "That's '_technological_', Eddy," he groaned as he looked at his friend in disdain. "But if the Space Pirates can construct advanced apparatuses such as these cryogenic tanks as well as this entire ship as a whole, then there is most probably a-"

Edd was suddenly cut short when a familiar-looking barrage of red energy projectiles whizzed by his and his friends heads and hitting the walls behind them. In panic, the Eds quickly looked ahead of them and saw yet another malevolent, snarling Space Pirate firing at them (and missing, at that – this Pirate appeared to be heavily wounded, much like the previous one).

Without thinking, both Edd and Eddy ducked behind Ed's mirthful figure and peeked out from behind him, trembling in fear. "_Take it out, monobrow!_" ordered Eddy with a quivering, high-pitched voice as he pointed at the disabled alien, hoping to provoke Ed into actually seeing it – a hopeless attempt, but a respected one.

Edd, knowing better than to give Ed an order and expecting him to follow through with it correctly, was about to interject by telling his companions to simply run for it. However, Ed's bellowing voice had sounded before his own, manifested in a characteristic Ed-phrase of "You got it, Eddy!"

Obviously, Ed exhibited an unusual amount of prowess in the art of firing his arm cannon – a swift slew of about thirty Power shots tore through the Space Pirate's hardy skin with incredible precision. Though Edd had been covering his ears for fear that the firing of the cannon would be painful-sounding, he could see that the Space Pirate had emitted a pained, guttural roar as it staggered back, propelled in that direction by the barrage of Ed's well-aimed Power blasts, and toppled over the railing at the edge of the walkway, falling to the floor below and, apparently, to its death.

Lowering his arm cannon, Ed triumphantly turned to his thoroughly amazed companions, who had finally risen after the impressive display, saluted, and stoutly stated "Aliens have been eliminated, Eddy! Can I have a cookie?"

Eddy did not hear his request, though – he was too preoccupied with wiping the laughter-construed tears off of his face. "You're a freak, Ed!" he laughed as he grabbed Ed's comparatively high shoulder, leaning against it as he clutched his quickly-cramping sides. "You should've been _born_ a Space Outlaw, or whatever it was!"

Of course, any praise directed toward Ed's likeness to a fabled galactic space warrior was always welcome, and hearing it from Eddy was perhaps the zenith of his existence…well, at least during the past five minutes. "I was born in a hospital, Eddy!" he explained, attempting to give clarification to the truth behind his creation. "My mom told me that I came out of a-"

"_Stop!_" barked Edd as he waved his hands in panic, prompting both Ed and Eddy to turn around and gawk at him in confusion. "Please, Ed, why don't we continue our search? You can tell us _all_ about your conception once we're at least eighteen years old. Sound good?"

Eddy, realizing that Ed had just been about to go into frighteningly mundane detail, found himself having to agree with his biology-inclined friend. "Yeah, uh," he stammered as his mind displayed horrifying images of Ed's birth against his will. "I _really_ want to get _out_ of this freakin' Space Pirate birthday party." Thus he walked past both Edd and Ed and continued across the elevated walkway and toward an eventual exit. Ed and Edd both shrugged, coming to a silent conclusion that Eddy had just assumed a nonchalant leadership role…or maybe they were just imagining things.

* * *

Thirty minutes of a fruitless time machine scavenger hunt throughout the _Orpheon_ had brought Ed, Edd and Eddy to yet another one of many elevator rooms that they had seen before – the sight of them had caused Ed to convulse with the concept of swimming in the tumultuous "Gravy Ocean", Edd to ponder about the overall size of the Space Pirate frigate, and Eddy to become nearly sick.

At this point, even Edd had practically waived the thought of ever locating an ambiguous time machine construct in this wrecked ship from his mind. Both he and Eddy would have come to the same conclusion if Edd had not been able to disguise his feelings of hopelessness so articulately:

At this rate, they were never going to get back home.

The elevator's rail was positioned on a rather long slope instead of the usual vertical orientation seen in hospitals and the like – it seemed to be similar to a downward-traveling chair lift. As it moved to the lower level of the chamber they had entered, the Eds said nothing, keeping to their own ambiguous, private thoughts – only the whirring of the sliding lift could be heard.

It was when the elevator had reached the midpoint of the rail that Eddy finally blurted out "This is _both_ your faults."

Letting out an exasperated sigh of disgust, Edd rolled his eyes as he crossed his arms, signifying impatience with his stout companion. "Oh, stop it, Eddy!" he hissed, annoyed with the fact that Eddy was, yet again, attempting to resurrect yet another recurring quarrel. "I'm sure we'll find a time machine, or at least something _similar_ here."

Likewise tired of hearing this overworked excuse, Eddy faced Edd with a snarl of contempt spread across his face. "You've been _saying _that for the past hour, Sockhead!" he barked directly in Edd's stern face. "Face it! We're all gonna…we're all gonna _die_ in this dump! Your plan didn't work, Double Dee! Pfft, some genius _you_ are!"

Edd normally would have waived this and passed it off as pointless babbling - however, nobody, absolutely _nobody_ insulted his factually impressive intellect and lived to tell the tale! After hearing Eddy's shrewd and cruel insult, he promptly faced his comparatively shorter companion, bearing his teeth in a similar snarl.

"Don't bring my attempts at actually trying to _save_ us from this predicament into this argument, mister!" he growled back, staring straight into Eddy's eyes in a pathetic attempt to intimidate him into mental submission. "Honestly, if you can think of a better way to send us hurtling ten-thousand light-years straight back to our _cul-de-sac_, _I'm all ears_!"

Eddy simply shook off this reflected verbal attack and retorted with yet another condescending comment (an ability that he was quite well-versed at). "You just don't wanna admit it!" he accused as the elevator finally slowed to a stop on the lower level of the chamber, its thick, glass-paned automatic door sliding open, revealing a rather sizeable, garage-sized chamber complete with a considerably massive, ceiling-high metallic door on the other side. "Face it, Sockhead. You _failed_." A smug, triumphant smirk formed across his face, and Edd was left speechless, his tongue stumbling across formless words in frustration.

"Uh, guys?" blurbed Ed from the sideline, apparently looking at something positioned within the sizeable chamber ahead of them. He quickly raised his arm cannon and attempted to take careful aim at whatever he was staring at in fright.

Initially, both Edd and Eddy had wanted to respond with an anger-fueled shout of "_What?!_" accompanied by staring their befuddled companion down, but the sight of Ed pointing his arm cannon in the direction of the chamber located before them had caused them to change their minds and, instead, turned their heads and looked into the room. One second later, they had both jumped back further into the sizeable elevator chamber, screamed in surprise, and hoisted up their arm cannons, pointing them threateningly at the Space Pirate staring them down from about eight feet away.

The problem this time was that this Pirate was not wounded in any way whatsoever – it was in prime condition, and optimized for the kill.

It proved this ability quite effectively when, instead of firing its arm cannon at the trio from a distance, it opted instead to charge the group at full speed – unfortunately, it was too fast for the Eds to maintain a good sighting on it, and because of this, it gave the Pirate the opportunity to swiftly grab Eddy by the throat and lift him up into the air, using its rather hefty arm cannon as a cudgel with which to strike Ed across the cranium with a well-placed horizontal swing, knocking him into the metallic right wall of the lift. Edd was, fortunately enough, spared, at least for the moment.

"_Eddy!_" screamed Edd in terror as he looked first at Ed sail across the chamber and slam into the wall with a sickening crash, and then he looked at Eddy struggling for air as he clawed at the growling Pirate's three-fingered grip. Knowing that this would be his only chance to take action, and even though his mind was thoroughly racked with panic and horror, Edd remembered a technique that his visor had previously alluded to. "_Hold on, Eddy!_"

Positioned about two feet directly behind the adrenaline-drunk Space Pirate, Edd pointed his arm cannon at its noticeably lightly-armored back and slowly relaxed his right hand and let his fingers and thumb stretch outward as if he were placing it on some sort of surface. He winced with apprehension and his legs quivered with fright (as he generally abhorred violence of any sort – however, these were desperate times, and he knew what those times usually called for) as the barrel of his arm cannon slowly widened, becoming about twice as large as it was before.

At the tip of the barrel through which a volley of energy blasts would normally fly, a luminescent, scorching hot, yellow-colored energy ball about the size of Edd's skull suddenly but slowly grew and took on a spherical shape. The magnitude of the energy contained within the glowing sphere had caused Edd's arm cannon to shake intensely, so much that he had begun to wonder whether it would explode in his face and therefore remove his right arm completely.

Letting out a scream and wishing he could cover his ears to drown out the resulting sound, he finally launched what his visor supposedly called a "Charge Beam shot" at point blank range.

The Pirate was immediately sent lurching forward as the energy blast exploded into his back, effectively severing its spinal cord completely, thoroughly incinerating its faded-purple skin, and causing a sudden spurt of forest-green ooze (which appeared to be the Pirate's blood) to spill onto the ground in front of Edd's feet – upon seeing this, Edd finally realized that he apparently had some sort of hemophobic condition and therefore stumbled back and onto his posterior in shock. However, he had done his work effectively, as the Pirate was now doomed to a vastly shorter life of pain and eternal suffering.

At that point, Eddy felt the heavily-wounded Pirate's grip loosen, and, seizing the opportunity and now stricken with a rather sudden burst of adrenaline, pried off the alien's hand and, instead of dropping to the ground, scrambled onto its rather oversized shoulders and balancing himself on them. Letting out a rage-filled, primal scream that one might expect of an infuriated Ed (as rare as that was, of course), he lifted his hefty arm cannon high above his head and brought it down on the Pirate's own head with such surprising force that it immediately fractured its skull in at least four different critical areas.

Following this, Eddy jumped off of the Pirate's shoulders, the downward force caused by his legs sending the Pirate instantly collapsing onto the metallic floor, now saturated in a fine but thin puddle of its own intergalactic, space mutant blood.

He looked ahead of him and into the chamber that was laid out before him, but obstructing his sight were two noticeably taller figures that were, fortunately, more recognizable to Eddy than the Pirate: his two wide-eyed, jaw-dropped friends, who were staring it him with two entirely different types of awe.

Ed, of course, was currently allowing his mind to flip through its abstract yet extremely brief dictionary of words with which to extensively praise both Eddy _and_ Edd on the "awesome moves" they had just pulled off quite perfectly.

Edd, of course, knew that he needed to take desperate measures in order to save his companion from being strangled to death by an alien life form – however, the sight of blood, and in such a _large_ quantity at that, had always stricken him with a grueling case of nausea, and he was rendered aghast at Eddy's shockingly brutal deathblow…there were no words to describe it.

Even Eddy was wondering to himself, _What the heck did I just do?! I…I didn't mean to break its head open like an egg!_

He had just been about to verbalize these thoughts in order to defend himself, but Edd had already turned around and head into the chamber, with Ed obediently following him as he located a small and rusty but apparently operational lever to the immediate right of the gargantuan metallic door laid out before them.

"We did what we were required to do in such a situation," explained Edd in a quivering voice as he pulled the lever down with his left hand, causing an unsettling rumbling to fill the room with a grinding sound as the mechanisms behind the doorway whistled and churned, causing it to slowly open. "After all, Eddy," he remarked, turning around and facing Eddy, who had now joined up with him and Ed in the chamber, pointing at the deceased Space Pirate located in the elevator lift well behind them. "That could have been _us_."

The surprising and uncharacteristic words pierced Eddy's mind like a spear through a loaf of bread. The back of his eyeballs became sore and the roof of his mouth became unsettlingly dry as he came to that realization.

Ed, of course, had no idea what was going on – he only knew that he and his two best friends were kicking the dust out of these evil aliens! Due to this, he was still left speechless, though he constantly emitted a low-frequency laugh that could probably only be perceived by a whale.

The gargantuan portal had, after about ten seconds, finally ceased rumbling and churning and had slowly opened from behind the group. Hoping to locate the technological apparatus that they were tirelessly searching for during this past hour-and-a-half, the three Eds immediately turned around and faced the chamber lying behind the giant door, a glimmer of hope in their eyes…and almost threw up on the spot.

Space Pirates. About fifteen of them. Lying on the ground. Covered in dark, forest-green ooze. The floor, the walls, the Pirates…_everything_ was covered in this thin, green slime… Pirate _blood_. Pirates with broken backs, broken arms…broken _everything_…some Pirates were only half there…they were cut in half, cut into fourths…

These Space Pirates were cut in half and lying dead on the ground!

"_I am going to be ill!_" screamed Edd as he promptly ran into the corner, his face now a light puce color. The Eds, out of respect and distaste for already-eaten-waffles, immediately looked away as Edd proceeded to be "ill."

Eddy promptly covered his eyes in disgust and bid Ed to do the same as they waited for their black-beanied friend to find balance and finally become oriented again, all while trying to avoid the horror scene spread out before them.

"D-don't look, E-Ed!" stammered Eddy through clenched teeth as he closed his eyes as tightly as he could as they rested under the palm of his left hand as well as the broadside of his arm cannon. He was now most definitely scarred for life, the grotesque image burned into his memory like a searing brand.

"This is just like in 'Gebgah: Lord of the Jell-O Monster!' It's the part where the evil Jell-O beast sucks the brains out of its victims and-" began Ed, about to go on yet another science-fiction-related tangent before Edd finally cut him off from the corner of the room.

"_Stop, Ed!_" stammered their endurance-lacking friend as he stumbled his way back to his friends, shielding his eyes from the slew of expired Space Pirates laid out in the chamber before them. "Please… We have to go back, now! I'm not taking one step further into that deathtrap! I mean…_just look_ at that!" At this point, the time machine search was officially over as far as he was concerned – now he was only concerned with the fact that he and his companions might be "next."

The next thing he and Eddy knew, however, Ed had swiftly and unnoticeably grabbed a firm hold of their free wrists (with only one hand, at that) and charged straight forward in a bull rush through the unceremonial and unorthodox Pirate graveyard, letting out an adrenaline-fueled scream of disgust, excitement, and a love of chickens as he plowed through the scattered corpses. What the heck was he _doing?_ Naturally, this was the thought that was currently being screamed out loud in both Edd and Eddy's panicked minds, and the only verbalization they could perform was in the form of shrieks of terror and disgust.

Due to the fact that Ed was, at the same time, shielding his eyes with the broadside of his arm cannon, his ability to see properly was totally disabled, and therefore, he did not notice that at the edge of the Pirate-filled chamber was a well-placed ledge. Completely oblivious and both enjoying himself and feeling an intense sensation of fright, he and his companions fell out of the small room and down to the floor about ten feet below. Thankfully, they had each landed safely (on their posteriors, of course – guaranteed cushioning) on the ground, albeit with three eyebrow-furrowing _pang_s, one for each Ed.

Rather surprisingly, Ed had wasted no time in promptly standing up and scouting his surroundings, bearing a stern and dutiful look on his face while his friends lay on the ground – at least _he _was a loyal Space Outlaw, always on the lookout for danger, just like in the movies! Though he could not understand exactly what he was looking at, he knew what he was _seeing_, at least.

Apparently, he and his companions had fallen off of an upper ledge located inside a massive, circular, baseball stadium-sized chamber with a ceiling that rose completely out of sight, shrouded in unperceivable darkness. There was no floor present in the room – only a circular walkway was present that led to a presently barred-off exit and circled around what appeared to be a gargantuan cryogenic tank (albeit without the conventional glass-like barrier that normally came complete with the stereotypical chamber) that was about as tall as the room itself: immeasurable. It looked as if one could fit an entire house, perhaps even multiple ones stacked on top of each other, inside of it. But Ed did not know that, of course, and appropriately laughed in confused response.

He heard a couple of strained groans from behind him but ultimately paid them no mind – even he knew that Edd and Eddy were both rising to their feet and rubbing their sore derrieres with their free hands. Naturally, the first thing that Eddy could think of doing once he finally regained balance and comfort in his butt was looking around and trying to figure out where the heck they were, while Edd basically ignored all other things that had just taken place and immediately broke out his handy scan visor.

"Ed, you are an _idiot!_" barked Eddy as he circled around Ed and stared directly into his face in contempt – after such a long day, he was clearly _not_ amused anymore, and certainly not in this situation. "You just _love_ getting me ticked off, don't ya? _Don't ya?!_"

Ed raised his finger in solitary repose, considered the basic foundations of ancient civilizations and tied them together with his affection toward gravy and X's-and-O's, eventually coming up with a verbal solution, which he immediately proposed with closed eyes and a pompous look on his face: "I love canoes, Eddy." Thus it had been spoken – thus it had been done.

Eddy had just been about to slap Ed across the face in order to release himself from all of his pent-up rage, but a surprising interjection from Edd had drawn his attention elsewhere. "Oh…my…word," muttered Edd with gaping eyes as he stared in wonder at the massive cryogenic-like tank located in the very center of the colossal chamber, prodding his visor and then turning to his companions with a refreshingly wide smile stretched across his visibly worn out face. "Gentlemen, we have reached the 'Reactor Core', the very center and power source of the _Orpheon_! I realize that both of you don't care about the details, but guess what the good news is?!"

"Just spit it ou-" began Eddy with a rushed and harsh tone in his voice, about to smack a random person upside the head due to his immense impatience. However, Edd had been too excited to spill the beans to waste any more time.

"This gargantuan Reactor Core, if tweaked properly, can be used as a double apparatus with two very different functions!" continued Edd, his voice nearly cracking as it raised exponentially in both pitch and volume – he was about to reveal the greatest news that any of them had heard ever since they had arrived in his basement back on Earth. "It could be used as an energy source that can power this downed vessel, or it can be used as an unorthodox _time machine!_"

As soon as he had even mouthed the words _time machine_, both Ed and Eddy immediately jumped high into the air with wide smiles across their faces as they laughed hysterically in their own signature fashions, screaming "_Woohoo!_" at the very top of their lungs, their voices echoing off of the metallic walls of the stadium-sized Core chamber.

Ed began to clap his left hand against his arm cannon as he jovially skipped around in hopeful delight. "Does this mean we get to go home and eat lots of cotton candy and pie? _And pudding skin, Double Dee?!_" He was undoubtedly getting his hopes up way too high, and for good reason, too.

"Double Dee, you're a genius!" cried Eddy as his eyes opened extremely widely as he gazed at the colossal Reactor in the center of the chamber hopefully – this was the apparatus that would get them off of the _Orpheon_, away from the Space Pirates…and back home to Peach Creek! What was more, it was still early enough to sneak a scam or two in before sundown – always a sweet deal according to Eddy. "What are you waiting for? _Fix it, fix it, fix it!_" He began jumping up and down in place, his overexcitement practically oozing out of every pore in his skin.

Even Edd was displaying obvious signs of radical hyperactivity, as he could hardly keep still himself…who could have stayed in one spot and kept calm at a time like this, anyway? They were finally about to return home!

"Right away, Eddy!" assured Edd, a flutter in his voice and an inventive gleam in his eyes as he began tweaking his visor in hopes of finding any data that would be useful to him during the "Core-tweaking" process, though he was certain that he could probably perform the maintenance himself. "I'll just configure the Core to the correct settings, and I'll have us home in no ti-"

A hollow, gut-wrenching crashing sound coming from the direction of the infinitely tall ceiling had cut off Edd's speech, as well as the Eds' jovial activities altogether. This was followed by yet another loud clanging sound, and then another, and another…something was happening at the top of the Reactor Core.

Wondering what in the world could have been happening at that height at a time such as this, Ed, Edd and Eddy looked upward in order to identify the source of the disturbance.

A deafening, behemoth-like roar instantly filled the room as the Eds stared in immense horror at the gargantuan, mansion-sized creature that _could_ and most likely _would_ undoubtedly end their lives possibly within the next ten seconds.

They had found the time machine that they needed in order to return home – all hope had finally returned, and they had known that they were in the clear. They _knew _that if this beast had not unexpectedly crawled down from the top of the _Orpheon_'s Reactor Core and inadvertently heard and spotted them, they would have most likely been on their way to their houses back on Earth, ready to scam up a storm and rake in the Jawbreakers. Apparently, it was not fated to happen like that. Not in the least.

An adrenaline-filled, fully alive, and frighteningly furious insect equal in magnitude to the dead ones the Eds had seen earlier on in the frigate was staring down at them with tiny, hungry eyes, its gaping mandibles oozing green slime and fresh Space Pirate blood as it caught the first glimpse of its next three-course meal.

Truly, it was all over for Ed, Edd and Eddy.


	4. A Change of Plans

**_Chapter Four_**

**_A Change of Plans_**

"_What is that thing, Double Dee?!_"

Eddy's characteristically cowardly nature had been activated and was now on full throttle, and rightly so. His body automatically caused him to step backwards a few feet and fall hard on his butt, and his eyes were open widely in terror as he and his companions gawked at the ferocious, forty-foot-tall predator staring at them hungrily with open, toothless but seemingly car-crushing jaws. The beast had allowed itself to drop from the very top of the Reactor construct and into the center of the Core itself, using its razor-sharp pincers to support itself as it hung there.

Ed was also gazing at the brown-exoskeletoned, grapple-tailed monstrosity, though not in horror, but in awe as millions and millions of science fiction movie references whizzed about in his mind. He could not have spewed them all out at once, though – his body was not capable of doing so without the possibility of self-destructing.

While his two friends were keeping themselves busy with staring and freaking out over tfhe predator hanging in the center of the Reactor Core about fifteen feet away, the fingers on Edd's left hand were hard at work poking and pressing modules on the side of his visor as he attempted to scan the ferocious beast (though the fact that he was also scared out of his mind did not assist him in doing so). His results had surfaced in no less than two seconds, fortunately.

"Eddy, my scan visor seems to indicate that _this _creature is known as a Parasite Queen!" answered Edd in a yell, though at this point, Eddy was too busy staring instead of listening. "It seems it has been genetically enhanced through Space Pirate muta-"

His words were cut off when Ed had suddenly tackled him from the right, sending him hurtling about eight feet to the left and skidding across the cold, metallic floor for an additional two. As he lay there, he thought about rising, turning toward Ed, and appropriately scolding him about the ill effects of excessive and random behavior. However, a screeching, ear-shattering sound, which strangely resembled grease sizzling on a steaming hot pan, sounding from behind him caused by a huge, corrosive, lime-green beam of unknown acid that shot from the Parasite Queen's mouth and striking the spot where he had just been standing was enough to convince him that he had every right to just _shut up_.

Ed had just saved Edd from being "digested at a distance."

"_Run, fellows!_" screamed Edd at the top of his lungs and he immediately scrambled to his feet and began running (as fast as he could, which, all things considered, was a pretty pathetic speed) counterclockwise around the grand walkway surrounding the Core, hoping to evade the Queen's life-threatening acid-blasts.

However, Eddy saw little sense in simply running around the room when they would just be going in circles and not essentially _escaping_. "Run_ where_, Sockhead?!" he shouted back at his fleeing friend, fearing that he might be dissolved at any second by a quick, green stream of acid. "_Where's the exit?_!"

At that point, Edd was so far away that Eddy could just barely hear him shout "_Don't just stand there! Just run so it doesn't ingest us!_"

It made enough sense to Eddy. He promptly followed Edd's advice and began running around the catwalk in the same direction, feeling like an idiot but justifying himself with the fact that he simply did not want to die. Upon making his second run around the massive chamber and after dodging three fatal acid-blasts in a row, he looked back and noticed that Ed had simply been standing in the same spot the whole time, his arm cannon raised at the Parasite Queen threateningly.

"_What the heck are you doing, Ed?!_" shouted Eddy as he continued his lap around the chamber in an attempt not to get killed on the spot. "_Run, you idiot!_"

In truth, both Edd and Eddy were the unintelligent ones in this scenario – they were simply running around, prolonging their eventual deaths at the jaws of the mutated Parasite Queen. Ed, however, was the one who had the most brilliant idea: to solve the problem that was laid out before them, one simply had to…

"_Destroy evil space aliens!_"

A fully-charged, skull-sized Power Beam blast, similar to the one that Edd had launched at point-blank range at the Space Pirate they had encountered several minutes ago, burst from Ed's arm cannon with an air-bursting _boom_ and flew like a bullet toward the Parasite Queen in the center of the Core. Upon seeing this, both Edd and Eddy stopped dead in their tracks and watched, as if in slow motion, the energy blast fly directly toward the massive beast and hit it dead in its bony upper jaw, creating a miniature explosion of yellow light and sending streams of plasma flying throughout the air.

The room instantly filled with the pained shrieks of the Queen and was rocked with its violent thrashing in the Core. In shock, Edd and Eddy both turned to Ed, wide-eyed and jaw-dropped, and saw that their companion had entered some kind of…trance.

Ed had brought back his arm cannon after firing the charged Power blast and had spread his legs similarly to how a baseball player would – he looked poised to strike once more. An uncharacteristic expression of determination was spread across his once-dumbstruck face, his eyes blazing and his teeth clenched ferociously like a wild animal. He seemed to be in an adrenaline-fueled rage…and apparently, it was not caused by the presence of gravy.

The end of his arm cannon's barrel suddenly opened in what could have been described as a plus-shaped manner, and he thrust it forward again – this time, however, a quick succession of five silver-colored blasts launched from the cannon and exploded on the exoskeleton of the already-shrieking Queen. These projectiles, according to Edd's scan visor's synopsis, were deemed "missiles."

Ed was unstoppable – blast after blast, he kept reeling back his arm cannon and sending a fresh slew of projectiles at the monstrous Parasite Queen. He was incredibly fast, as well, as the beast had no time in between shots to get in a quick acid-beam – all it could do was scream and roar in pain and surprise.

Similarly, Edd and Eddy were shocked by this rage that Ed had gone into…they were both at a loss for words, especially since the constant explosions and crashing of objects dropping from the ceiling had caused a deafening ruckus within the chamber, until finally Eddy found the strength to muster three decisive words…

"_Go, lumpy, go!_" he shouted, now in support rather than fear – and now, inspired and adrenaline-fueled by watching his mentally-challenged friend totally kick alien butt, he followed suit by firing his arm cannon, as well. He quickly changed hand positions at random as he pointed his weapon at the Queen, hoping to somehow activate different kinds of ammunition, eventually succeeding in locating both the missile and charge functions. He laughed with an insane flair in his voice as he joined Ed in pulverizing the now-defenseless parasite. Amazingly, the tables had turned in their favor!

Edd, however, could not bring himself to fire at the Parasite Queen…though it seemed to be the most intelligent thing to do, there were other problems at hand – Ed and Eddy could deal with the beast while he sorted them out.

_I fear that the Queen's sporratic behavior and Ed and Eddy's violent rampage may harm the Core and therefore ruin our only chance to return home!_ he pondered whilst staring analytically at the Reactor Core in dismay. _Even if we do exterminate this oversized pest, it does not guarantee that…_

"Woo, good job, Ed!" cried Eddy with a sleazy, triumphant tone in his voice, patting Ed on the back soon after noticing that the Queen was beginning to undergo what appeared to be its death throes, characterized by its violent rocking back and forth and roars of pain, not to mention the vast amounts of dark-green blood trickling from its thoroughly-burned body and face. "Looks like we fried that oversized cockroach…_hey!_ I just had an idea for a scam, monobrow! Think of it: 'Ed's Pest Control!' If we could exterminate big bugs like this…"

All the while, Ed was jovially agreeing with Eddy, apparently snapped out of his violent trance and back to his normal self. "Ooo! Ooo!" he cried in excitement, jumping up and down in praise of Eddy's wild and out-of-place suggestions. "Can I be the 'Space Exterminator', Eddy? Aw, come on, please? Aw, come _on_!"

Amidst the violent screams of the Parasite Queen and Ed and Eddy's rather foolish celebration and conjuring of ideas, Edd had still found the ability to actually _think_. And think he did, for their predicament was quite a confusing one at best. _Perhaps there would be another module…no, that's ridiculous! Our only option is to search the ship for another…_"

His thoughts were interrupted upon noticing something that seemed to be going on within the Reactor Core itself. While undergoing its death throes, it seemed that the Parasite Queen had found enough time to quickly gather up the energy and stomach acid required to launch one more destructive acid blast at his companions – the worst part was that neither Ed or Eddy had noticed, as they were too busy celebrating and coming up with crazy concepts for scams, along with Ed's ranting about his awesome "Space Outlaw-ness."

"_Ed, Eddy, look out!_"

Once again, everything had suddenly reverted to slow-motion as Edd dove to get in front of his friends and shield them from the blast. Ed and Eddy, out of the corners of their eyes, saw that Edd was rushing toward them with a panicked look on his face – he must have been signifying that something was happening involving the Parasite Queen.

They could hear their hearts beat as the failing, roaring insect discharged one final acid beam straight at them – what was truly stunning, however, was that Edd had been quick enough and had actually placed himself _between_ the two of them and the blast!

And, being the genius that Edd was, he already had a fully charged Power shot at the ready. And with this blast prepared, he proceeded to accomplish the impossible.

Standing directly between his friends and a fatal blast of extremely corrosive acid, Edd fired the Power shot directly at the incoming acid-beam. His own energy beam then proceeded to plow straight through and overpower the oncoming spray and reduce it to nothing – finally, the powerful energy shot burst through and hit the Parasite Queen dead in the back of the throat, knocking it backward with titanic force and causing it to lose its grip on the sides of the Core chamber. It began to flail and roar even more violently than it had before until it was officially confirmed by Ed, Edd, and Eddy alike: the Parasite Queen was finished…and it was Edd who had done it!

With one final, deafening roar of anguish, the once-ferocious, mansion-sized Parasite Queen lost its grip and crashed down into the dark, imperceivable depths of the Reactor Core, never to be seen again.

"_Double Dee!_" shouted both Ed and Eddy as they gawked at their physically incapable friend in sheer amazement. They had always known that Edd _was_ capable of accomplishing grandiose-scale things from time to time, as rare as they were, but they had never imagined him to pull of something such as this.

"Where the heck did _that_ come from, Sockhead?" blurted Eddy in utter shock, looking at the now Queen-less Reactor Core, then back at Edd, then back at the Core. "I didn't think you had the guts!" Perhaps for that one moment, just for that _one_ moment, Eddy had finally gained about an ounce of respect for Edd – he had saved his life, after all, but obviously he was not going to admit that any time soon.

"Yeah, Double Dee!" joined Ed, likewise amazed and jumping up and down with overexcitement…as per usual. "That was just like in 'Garbon: Advent of the Evil Mole Mutants'! 'Cept you were Double Dee and not a rabid mole zombie." His face flattened once more and all capacity for thought dissipated out of his right ear.

Edd, though thoroughly flattered by Eddy's clear and concise appraisal of his heroic actions, could not help but stare at Ed in confusion and, slightly, disdain. "Ed, could we please…stop with the movie references? Thank you."

Ed was about to reply by, obviously, making yet another reference to an ancient science fiction film – however, a ground-rattling and ear-shattering explosion coming from their immediate right had caused all three of the Eds to nearly lose their balance and shout in surprise. They each quickly turned around and glanced at the source of the explosion…and their jaws dropped. The Reactor Core itself was trembling violently and bursting into a violent column of flames, undergoing a fresh and deafening explosion every five seconds. In fact, the cataclysm that was occurring about fifteen feet away from them was causing the entire _Orpheon_ to rock violently back and forth.

"Er…what's going on, Double Dee?" stammered Eddy, slowly backing away from the malfunctioning Core, fearing the absolute worst. "Wasn't that supposed to be the time machine thing?!"

Edd, honestly, had absolutely no idea what was going on – he knew that the Reactor Core was undergoing some sort of horrible malfunction and was most likely going to collapse on itself, causing the entire frigate to ultimately lose electrical power…but that was all he could come up with. Before he could answer based on these hypotheses, a gratingly mechanical voice (apparently female, as far as they could tell) sounded from a distant PA system located somewhere within the chamber.

It calmly stated in a monotone voice, "Reactor core critical. Evacuate, immediately."

That answered Eddy's question quite effectively.

"Whoa-ho!" shouted Ed in excitement as he repeatedly neared the point of losing his balance amidst the violent rocking of the _Orpheon_. "This is fun!" Apparently, he had absolutely no clue as to the danger he and his two friends were now faced with – and apparently, neither did Edd or Eddy, for the worst was yet to come.

"Warning: seven minutes until _Orpheon _self-destruction. Have a nice day."

The "have a nice day" part was most likely the most unintentionally sinister phrase that Edd and Eddy had ever heard in their lives.

Both Edd and Eddy immediately broke out in screams of horror as they realized the magnitude of their predicament, and panic seized control of their minds and bodies instantly. Eddy had been right all along - it truly _had _been a terrible idea to venture into this desolate Space Pirate frigate.

Knowing that they had only seven minutes to escape the _Orpheon_ before it violently exploded around them (and only seven minutes left to live, for that matter), they both headed straight for the chamber's exit in a full-out sprint, which was fortunately in plain view well before the last horrifying PA announcement was voiced.

"_Ed, come on!_" they both screamed amidst the deafening noise that had surrounded them, signaling wildly to their dim-witted and ever-preoccupied companion as they forced the automated portal open with their hands. Through tremendous effort, they had succeeded in forcing the glowing-blue, hexagonally-shaped door open, and they promptly barged straight through into the hallway that lay before them, with Ed now following suit, still guffawing all the way while the _Orpheon_ began to slowly collapse around them.

Their plan had failed – all opportunities to return home from within the _Orpheon_ had now been flushed down the hypothetical toilet.

* * *

"Come on, come on, come on, _come on!_"

The elevator on which the Eds were currently positioned had been traveling upward at far too slow a pace for Eddy's tastes. In response to this, he had been jumping up and down frantically repeating this same line over and over again at an increasing volume, his teeth clenched and his eyes opened widely in panic as the sound of distant explosions filled his ears and provided horrifying ambience. "_Why won't this thing go faster?!_"

"Eddy, _please!_" shouted Edd amidst the terrible ruckus that was occurring all around them, fully aware of the fact that the massive space station that they were currently placed on would explode in less than seven minutes, but still attempting to remain calm. "There's no need to panic! We're simply going to head out the same way we came in, and we'll be off of the _Orpheon _before we know it!" Though even he knew that, in reality, this task would prove to be even more difficult to accomplish than he had made it sound.

Eddy, of course, had not been listening, and neither had Ed, for the former was too busy shouting in impatience and the latter had been preoccupied with picking his nose – Edd's second attempt to reason with Eddy had also been trounced when the elevator had finally reached its upward destination, causing Ed and Eddy to immediately dash out into the chamber lying ahead. Edd simply sighed in defeat and followed suit.

The Eds had recognized the room that they were now situated in as one of the biological research labs they had ventured through before – however, now they were on the first floor as opposed to earlier, when they were situated on the catwalks above. Upon gazing at what was happening ahead of them, about fifteen feet away in the center of the chamber, they realized that, apparently, they were not the only ones having a difficult time inside the doomed _Orpheon_.

Four Space Pirates were positioned around one of the massive cryogenic tanks that the Eds had seen earlier in their search, yet it appeared as if they had not noticed the three of them just yet – it seemed like they were far too preoccupied with firing their arm cannons sporratically at the gigantic Parasite Queen (one of many, apparently) that was attempting to escape from the half-shattered tank. Truly, this _Orpheon _had transformed into even more of a death-trap than it had been before, all because Ed, Edd and Eddy had killed a Parasite Queen in defense.

"Quick, go while they're not looking!" shouted Eddy amongst the roars of Space Pirates and the Parasite Queen, signaling toward the hope-bringing hexagonal door at the other end of the room, about twenty-five feet away. Before Edd could retaliate by stating that such an attempt would most likely be lethal due to the fact that the Pirates would most probably notice them, both Ed and Eddy had run past him and toward the door, swerving a smidge to the right in order to avoid the cryogenic tank – he decided he would follow them, as well, as to not lose them amidst the ever-growing chaos.

The three Eds had just about made it halfway through the chamber and had now passed the under-attack tank as well as the Pirates by about four feet when sudden and unfortunate disaster struck once again. As _soon_ as they had passed by the miniature war-zone, the entire cryogenic tank was suddenly engulfed in a massive, fiery explosion that sent the Space Pirates and assorted Parasite Queen body parts flying in all directions (excluding the ones who were promptly incinerated on the spot) as well as flung the Eds far across the room and crashing straight through the automatic door, shattering it to smithereens.

Now, as in numerous past incidents, when Ed, Edd and Eddy were sent hurtling through the air, they would normally expect the presence of some sort of floor in order to break their fall. However, in this unfortunate scenario, there happened to be no ground whatsoever – thus, the three Eds crashed through the automated door and flew straight down a seemingly bottomless pit into pure darkness, screaming all the while. It was amazing that their vocal cords were still intact after putting them through such strain.

Four minutes until detonation.

* * *

Down and down Ed, Edd and Eddy fell into the unknown depths of the _Orpheon_ – obviously, they wondered when they would ever reach a definite bottom or if they would simply fall forever…or if they would simply be ejected out into the blackness of space altogether. Over time, the fall had become so long that they had begun to think that they would not survive even if there _had_ been a floor on which to land. They braced themselves for eventual impact and prepared to cushion their fall with their behinds – it had worked in the past, at least.

And it had worked this time, as well. Just as the Eds had begun preparations for extreme buttock pain, they had finally crashed onto yet another familiar-feeling metallic floor – and they had landed particularly _hard_, for now their butts had begun to pang and sting more severely than ever before. In fact, it felt as if they had each been slapped in the behind with a gigantic lawn chair…several times, to be exact.

"_Yeowch!_" screamed Eddy, jumping upward onto his feet and grasping his behind in agony while Edd did the same (though Ed had found it to be particularly amusing and was laughing hysterically at this point). "My butt is _killing_ me! Jeez, what's _with _this stupid space station and attacking my-"

"Assistance would have been a much-appreciated element in our escape, I must say!" interrupted Edd almost too comically, whether he was aware of it or not, clutching his aching butt as he surveyed the area in which they were now situated. Apparently, they were on one side of a large, thirty-foot long and fifteen-foot wide chamber, with an ever-beckoning hexagonal door resting on the other side of a huge, eight-foot deep pit – the worst part of it was that they only had a few minutes to get off of the _Orpheon_ alive, and they had seemingly no way of getting across to the other side. "Honestly, I feel that we're in a terrible position here, gentlemen! I really have to admit that this predicament is really giving me a good kick in the-"

"_Asteroid!_" shouted Ed, most likely randomly and also very comically, as he pointed upward toward the ceiling in wonder, eyes open wide at the fact that supposedly there was an interstellar rock headed directly their way. He gawked in the direction of the ceiling with his jaw hanging open rather stupidly. "Wow, it is almost as big as my-"

"Asteroid, Ed?" queried Edd (unwittingly adding to the now lengthy strain of hilarious posterior references), not believing that Ed could possibly have been correct in his proposal – Eddy had felt the same, but did not bother questioning him. _He_ was too preoccupied with freaking out over the fact that the space station could have exploded around them at any second. "Please, Ed, why would an _asteroid…_"

A piercing, high-pitched shriek coming from the direction of the ceiling had caused both Edd and Eddy to join Ed in looking upward in apprehension. Instantly, Eddy let out a horrified scream as he slowly backed away from the creature that they were now faced with, and Edd quickly activated his scan visor and began collecting data on the foe before them, perspiring madly.

Positioned about ten feet in the air and directly above the gaping pit in the center of the large chamber, and suspended from a large assortment of electrical wires and what appeared to be life-support tubes, was a dragon. Of course, this was not a typical-looking, bulky and oversized dragon that one would typically imagine – instead, this particular beast appeared to be strange cross between a pterodactyl and a significantly thinner version of said dragon. It seemed to have sported relatively thin limbs and a set of large, translucent orange wings on its back, as well as a thin-beaked mouth complete with a set of razor-sharp, threatening teeth that were immediately bared as soon as it had laid its fiery, glowing red eyes upon the Eds. What was more was that this intimidating, bus-sized dragon appeared to be fully decked in some kind of metallic armor from the tip of its elongated beak to the end of its sleek, five-foot long tail.

It was a dragon, alright.

"_What the heck is that thing, Double Dee?!_" came Eddy's horrified voice as he attempted to point his arm cannon at the beast but failed to do so due to the fact that it was pretty much terrifying him to no end.

The dragon-like creature momentarily took its eyes off of the Eds and surveyed its immediate surroundings, noticing that it was somehow rooted to the spot and covered with electrical wires and tubes attached to its armor. Upon realizing this, it let out yet another ear-piercing, high-pitched screech as it somehow caused all of the modules around it to promptly explode in a shower of sparks. It then extended its gargantuan, pale-orange wings into the air and shrieked once more, apparently proclaiming its freedom from its cybernetic ceiling-prison.

Soon after doing this, and before the Eds could do anything else, it launched itself straight upward from its position and crashed right through the metallic ceiling, making a reckless and destructive escape and causing a shower of metallic and electronic debris to fall into the pit that lay before them.

Luckily, Edd had been able to successfully scan the lithe beast before it could escape into the unknown depths of the ill-fated _Orpheon_, and was immediately stupefied upon realizing exactly what they had just witnessed.

"Gentlemen, my scan visor indicates that that horrendously obscene behemoth that we have just encountered is known as 'Ridley,'" he shouted amidst the thunderous crashing of random debris coming from the ceiling and pouring down before them. "And…oh my word…that creature was…the _leader_ of the Space Pirates!"

Eddy, similarly to Edd, was now appalled, as well – he could not fathom how exactly a seemingly mindless _dragon_ could have been the head honcho of such a technologically advanced race of aliens…or what exactly it was doing on the _Orpheon_ in the first place. "_That_ thing was the Space Pirate boss?!" he cried back in shock, half-unbelieving this news. "Are you kidding? _That was a freakin' dragon, Double Dee! A dragon!_"

He quickly turned around to face Ed, who was positioned well behind them for some unknown reason, in hopes of being backed up in his argument, but found that his friend was now in a completely different mindset altogether…in fact, he appeared to have entered yet another Space Outlaw trance!

"_Must…destroy…evil Space Mutant King!_" he bellowed heroically as he dashed toward his two unsuspecting companions, quickly and effortlessly rounded both of them under his right arm (with a monstrous grip, to be precise), and lifted his left arm high into the air as he stupidly jumped right off of the ledge and straight toward the eight-foot deep pit that lay before them. Edd and Eddy, at this point, were both screaming at such a volume that it had endangered their very lungs, but Ed, by some strange force of nature, actually knew what he was doing – such were the powers of his sudden Space Outlaw-induced rush of adrenaline.

With a quick and clever flick of the wrist, the long, metallic, and seemingly forgotten module on the back of his left forearm instantly produced a long, snakelike, blue-colored beam of energy and had launched it toward the ceiling. So _this_ was the function of the seemingly-forgotten "grapple beam"! The elongated, sparkling ray snaked swiftly through the air until it reached a hook-shaped pipe protruding from the ruined wreck of a ceiling that rested high above them, promptly latched itself to it quite tightly.

Thus, by some strange, freak force of nature, Ed had become Tarzan. The grapple beam that was attached to the back of his forearm that now connected indirectly to the crumbling ceiling allowed him and his companions to actually _swing_ across the gaping pit that lay beneath them. As soon as he had reached the proper position in his swing, he quickly flicked his wrist once more, detaching the beam from the ceiling and causing it to swiftly snake back into the module on his arm. This allowed him and the friends underneath his right arm to fly across the rest of the pit's length and land relatively safely on the other side…at least, that was what should have happened.

In reality, the results were quite the contrary to a safe landing. Ed had commanded his grapple beam to detach at an extremely odd angle, which, instead of sending them across the length of the pit and onto the platform before them, actually caused them to be sent flying almost completely horizontally toward the door itself.

Obviously, and as in past situations, they climactically and clumsily crashed right through the door (although not without a signature cry of "yahoo!" from Ed), shattering it to microscopic pieces of luminescent metal.

Now free from Ed's titanic grasp, Edd and Eddy (along with their oafish friend) flew straight toward the metallic wall in the chamber behind the door and crashed headfirst into it with painful _thuds_ – they promptly clutched their heads in pain in response to this, although at this point they were more or less becoming accustomed to this type of physical pain.

Eddy quickly turned around and faced Ed with a ferociously rage-filled expression of contempt on his stout face, shouting horrible obscenities at him for supposedly "chafing his sides" as well as "being stupid" once again. However, oddly, neither Ed nor Edd could hear a word he was saying – in fact, not even Eddy could hear his own words coming out of his mouth…and that was when he had come to the horrid realization that he could not breathe.

They must have crashed headlong into a hallway that was connected directly into outer space. Finally realizing this, the three Eds quickly dug into their lint-encrusted pockets, procured their ever-faithful space-grade air-masks, and swiftly donned them, ultimately saving themselves from suffocating due to the absence of air – fortunately, Ed had equipped it correctly this time.

Apparently, they were now in the same hallway that they had used to enter the _Orpheon_ when they had first arrived, which meant that the hangar at which the ship was docked was most likely just outside. It looked as if they had nearly succeeded with their desperate escape, but just out of simple curiosity, Edd tapped into the analytical abilities of his visor in order to determine exactly how much time remained until the gargantuan _Orpheon_ would finally explode.

Upon reading the transmission displayed on his visor's green-colored screen, Edd immediately gasped in horror and turned to his friends, a panic-stricken expression on his visage as he lifted a single pointer finger up into the air. Seeing this gesture, Ed and Eddy immediately panicked, as well – even Ed knew what message Edd was trying to get across.

One minute until detonation.

Ed, Edd and Eddy ran. They ran as fast as their bodies as well as outer space would allow, straight toward the hexagonal, automated portal that lay dead ahead of them, silently screaming in panic as they attempted to escape the massive space station before sixty seconds were up. With tremendous, earth-shattering force, big Ed's rock-solid cranium was used to batter straight through the door, scattering its remains into distant space – they had reached the docking bay situated outside of the _Orpheon_, and their eyes immediately glimmered with hope upon spotting the ship that they had suddenly appeared in only hours ago. They had never seen its exterior, nor did they really have ample time to examine it thoroughly.

What the Eds did notice, though, as they attempted to dash toward it with all speed was that the ship was unlike any they had ever imagined – they had actually perceived it to be much more spectacular than it was, well, different. For instance, it appeared to be quite flat, only about ten feet in height, and was quite wide all around, kind of in the shape of a circle-shaped home plate as seen in baseball. The upper half of the ship appeared to be an incredibly luminescent vermillion in color, and sported a rather large windshield on the front that was colored light green and was oddly shaped similarly to the Eds' own visors. The lower half of the ship, in contrast, seemed to serve as a landing mechanism in its entirety, colored a simple, dark metallic gray with four child-sized cylinders (which appeared to be generic "turbo boosters", as far as they could tell). The ship, more or less, looked like a gigantic, garage-sized, and somewhat flattened interstellar helmet.

Of course, at the moment, they did not care about the design or the details of the ship even in the slightest – they were too preoccupied with trying escape the _Orpheon_ within the next thirty seconds. With incredible strain, the Eds pushed themselves through the vacuum of space as quickly as they possibly could, and found that with enough effort, they would be able to reach their ship and escape…that is, if they were fortunate enough.

Even in the soundlessness of the void that was outer space could they hear the earth-shattering explosions suddenly sounding all around them. Quickly they looked back, obviously thinking _what the heck could be happening now?!_ Were they too late? Was the _Orpheon_ already self-destructing, about to incinerate them into nothing?

No - the station would last for another twenty seconds, but the true cause of the premature explosions suddenly going off around them was currently flying almost directly above the Eds at blindingly high speeds, dropping objects that resembled mundane bombs and firing crimson-colored beams from its mouth, decimating the _Orpheon_ on which it had been confined. Ridley, the dragonic leader of the Space Pirates, had escaped from his biotechnical prison.

Obviously, this was not a thing that one could just say "oops" to.

Ten seconds until detonation.

"_Get us outta here, Double Dee!" _screamed Eddy, practically standing on top of the sizeable, leather-coated pilot's seat at which Edd was currently stationed, twitching and flailing about with panic. "_Go, go, go!_"

Ed, Edd and Eddy had successfully made it back into the rather cramped interior of what they now deemed _their _spaceship, fully aware of the fact that they absolutely had to act fast or face their catastrophic deaths. With ten seconds until the _Orpheon_'s climactic detonation as well as the fact that a rage-stricken Ridley was currently outside wrecking the station itself, things could not possibly have been any more hectic. The worst part of it was the fact that all of their fates were now resting on Edd's ability to fly a completely foreign spacecraft, which he had absolutely no clue how to operate.

"_Eddy, please, I'm trying to concentrate!_" shouted Edd in his signature, ever-quivering voice as his eyes quickly scanned the three foot long array of random buttons, switches, and levers that lay before him – the entire dashboard seemed to be silently taunting him with its incredible complexity. He began to perspire nervously as he trembled in panic, trying to come to some sort of conclusion on how in the world he would ever operate this mysterious mini-shuttle.

Eddy, surprisingly, _had_ left Edd to his lightning-quick thinking, for at the moment, Ed was trying to escape the ship in order to go outside so he could do interstellar battle with the rampaging Ridley. Eddy had kept himself busy by pulling on the tail of Ed's green-spattered jacket, trying to keep him pinned to the ground as his lummox of a friend attempted to reach the circular-shaped portal that served as the ship's exit.

"_Creature from another planet!_" he bellowed with a warrior-like flair, not a quiver in his ever-corny heroic voice acting. "_I, Ed, will challenge you! Prepare to meet your maker!_"

Eddy toiled and strained his thin arms in order to keep Ed on the ground – this was _not _the right time to be fooling around, that was certain. "Ed, shut up!" he grunted loudly over the tremendous _boom_s rocking their ship ever so violently – he could barely hear himself speak…or think, for that matter. "Even if you _did _go out there, that stupid lizard would swallow you like a Jawbreaker! _Give it u…whoaaaaa!_"

A tremendous, balance-obliterating jolt had immediately cut off the remainder of Eddy's derogatory sentence and sent both him and Ed flying toward the back end of the ship at high speed and crashing back-first into the cold, metallic starboard wall with a painful _clang_. They both looked out the far off cockpit window through wide, terror-stricken and wonder-filled eyes (the former belonging to Eddy, the latter being an eternal characteristic of good ol' Ed) and realized that Edd had actually hit the jackpot – he had gotten the ship moving and was now unsteadily flying them away from the _Orpheon_!

At that exact moment, the blackness of space that lay before them outside of the cockpit window suddenly illuminated, becoming a blindingly bright, yellowish color as the most incredibly loud, ear-shattering explosion the Eds had ever heard in their lives came from almost directly behind the ship. As soon as the gargantuan blast sounded, the ship began to rock violently, causing Edd to momentarily lose control of the miniature steering wheel he had located and was currently utilizing. The ship nearly did a complete barrel roll in the midst of the quaking, but Edd had, through an extremely devoted physical effort, managed to keep the ship right side up for the time being.

The _Orpheon_, a gargantuan, derelict Space Pirate frigate, had just been engulfed in a thermonuclear explosion.

And the Eds could not believe it – they had actually escaped the destruction with their lives. It truly was a miracle.

"_Double Dee, you did it!_" shouted Eddy when the ship had finally become stable enough for he and Ed to stride up to the cockpit and lean over the pilot's seat, gazing out the window at the blackness of space. He and Ed then looked down at Edd, who appeared to be hard at work pondering something with intense severity while he slowly turned the ship's port side to the left.

Now lying outside of the cockpit window that they were now all staring out of was the Earth-sized, faded-orange, rocky-textured planet that they had seen quite some time ago – Tallon IV was what Edd had previously identified it as.

Eddy had actually been about to compliment Edd on his heroics once again (yet another new world record, to be sure), but something had suddenly appeared outside of the cockpit window that had drawn the immediate attention of all three Eds alike: Ridley, the supposed general of the malevolent Space Pirate race, had miraculously escaped the all-consuming destruction of the _Orpheon_ and was now apparently flying through space, heading toward the surface of the planet that lay before them.

Of course, this prompted yet another psychotic outburst from Ed, but Eddy had been swift enough to use his left and only free hand to cover Ed's mouth before he could even have a chance to open it – however, this did not stop the big oaf from inaudibly shouting out his unheard challenges in a muffled tone.

"Where the heck's _he _going?" queried Eddy with a relatively puzzled tone in his voice, possibly due to the slight shock he and his companions alike were currently feeling due to the dire fate that they had just narrowly escaped. Before he could allow his intelligent companion to answer, though, a second question had entered his mind – one that he had been intending to pose ever since he and his friends had exterminated the ferocious Parasite Queen in the Reactor Core. "And _how are we supposed to get home now?!_"

Edd knew that he could answer both questions at the same time, and he sighed heavily as he readied himself to unveil news that even he knew would sound horribly unpleasant upon being spoken.

"It appears Ridley is heading toward that planet, Tallon IV," he answered in a quivering, hushed voice as he inhaled deeply and exhaled in response about two seconds later. "And…that is where we are headed, as well."

Eddy almost had a heart attack, and Ed was pretty sure that he had just heard the greatest news he had ever received in his entire life.

Before either of them could even voice their vastly contrasting opinions on the proposal that Edd had just made, though, they were both interrupted by a sudden and surprising jolt that was felt throughout the entire ship, followed by a quick succession of violent buzzing sounds as the ship itself began to violently tremble, causing Ed and Eddy, the two who were presently standing, to almost lose their balance once again.

Upon noticing this, Edd quickly turned his head to the left and, in a renewed state of panic, stared at the upper leftmost skull-sized terminal attached to the dashboard. He deciphered the data erratically being displayed on its screen and winced in shock as he came to a horrid realization – even more bad news was on the way, it seemed...what else could go wrong?

He quickly spun around in his "captain's seat" and faced his friends, a panic-stricken expression strewn across his horizontally-elongated visage. He knew what he now needed to convey to his two friends would most likely be one of the most difficult things he would ever say in his entire life.

"Gentlemen," he began, his voice trembling due to the horrible shaking that the ship was currently undergoing. "If my calculations are correct, this vessel is destined for obliteration due to its extremely unstable state, most likely caused by the _Orpheon_'s destruction. I shall attempt to land it somewhere on Tallon IV.

And you two…" he continued, now voicing his horribly cruel yet necessary decision. "You two must enter those escape pods and land on the planet yourselves."

And so Eddy had been wrong after all – things _had_ become far worse than he had ever imagined. Not only were they, _the_ Ed, Edd and Eddy, stranded in outer space and about to crash-land on what was most likely a hostile alien planet, but now they were being forced to _separate_ in order to increase their chances of survival?

Both he and Ed looked to their immediate right and indeed saw two child-sized escape pods that looked almost hilariously identical to large chicken eggs. They were already opened, apparently, with one half of each pod lowered enough for one person to make it through and sit inside. Unfortunately, because of the apparatuses' current appearances, they did not look quite like normal Earth-based eggs – a true shame, for certainly Ed would have provided a memorably hysterical reaction upon realizing their similarity.

Eddy truly wanted to argue back with his mentally-superior companion – he really did – but the increasingly violent convulsions that their ship was experiencing had just proved to be much too threatening for his tastes and had inadvertently caused him to slowly step inside one of the uncomfortably small escape pods, hesitantly taking a seat inside – Edd was relatively surprised, for he had assumed that Eddy would have been the most difficult one to persuade.

"You better be happy, Double Dee," he muttered loudly as he glared at his beanie-wearing friend from the inside of the ovular escape pod. "That I'm actually giving one of your plans another chance. And this one _better_ work! And we _better_ land at the same exact spot, too…'cause I don't wanna be eaten by some sort of weird alien monster, ya got that?"

Ed, however, seemed to be less willing to leave the ship, and promptly found enough time amidst the ever-threatening rocking to lift Edd into the air and give him a signature, bone-crushing hug – oafish and dimwitted as he truly was, he had no intention of leaving his best friend Edd all alone on this doomed miniature vessel! What was more, he had absolutely no intention of even fathoming the idea of he and his two best friends being separated from one another on a mysterious planet, as exciting as it had initially seemed!

Would they all be together when they landed, or would they be millions of miles away from each other…he did not know, nor could he have known! Similar thoughts were running laps through Eddy's megalomaniacal mind, though he did not have the courage to show his feelings – he put too much effort into maintaining his dignity.

"But Double Dee!" cried Ed, a horrified expression present on his face and a pitiably worried tone in his now-quivering, deep voice. "I don't wanna be all alone on a lost world like in the movies! Being a Space Outlaw is not fun when you don't have your fellow space warriors too! _I love chickens, Double Dee!_" He finally broke out into long, pained sobs as he dropped Edd back into his ironically comfortable chair and wiped his running nose with his long left sleeve, creating horrifyingly gruesome "art" on his jacket.

Edd, panting heavily as he finally regained the ability to breathe after Ed's crushing and unsuspected hug, had to sympathize with his friend – it was an incredibly tough decision to make, and even he knew that whether the three of them would land safely and geographically close to each other on the mysterious planet of Tallon IV was totally up to fate, and he had no control over it. Still, he attempted to see his friends off on a hopeful note.

"Yes, I know, Ed…however, we could probably discover a means to return home on the planet, as well," he nearly shouted over the increasingly loud convulsions of the ship and the rattling of metal surrounding him and filling his ears. "Don't worry…if you could just be a brave Space Outlaw when you land on the planet, you'll be just fine, and even then, Eddy and I will attempt to find you as soon as possible. That's what friends are for, right, Ed?"

He smiled in an attempt to comfort his oafish friend that shared almost the same name – fortunately, his desperate attempt had worked, for Ed had responded by smiling with newfound hope and saluting Edd with dignity, immediately assuming the role of everyone's favorite Outlaw as per "orders".

"Yes, sir, Captain Smarty Pants!" he proudly announced as he lowered his rigid, saluting hand as quickly as he had raised it and turned around, heading toward the second escape pod and entering it, taking a cramped seat in its interior. Regardless, he began to tremble with anticipation, excitement, and fear – such a mixture of feelings…but who knew what was to happen from this point onward? No one knew, obviously…not even the ever-imaginative Eds.

"So, we're gonna to find a way home on that rock?" scoffed Eddy in an ever-characteristic gravelly tone, shrugging in relative indifference. "Okay, _fine_, but we better find _something_ this time! …Ugh, I hate these stupid mushy goodbyes…so, uh, Ed, Double Dee…catch you guys later!"

As soon as he had finished pronouncing the word "later", the vault that served as the entrance to Eddy's miniature escape pod had finally closed. Five seconds later, with a guttural, mechanical whirring noise, the pod itself was swiftly and immediately launched out of the side of the ship and promptly began following its intended course, heading directly toward the surface of Tallon IV.

Likewise, Ed's pod had closed up tightly and a mechanical series of whirrs had begun to sound. However, before the vault had managed to completely close off, Ed had been able to sneak in a final wave goodbye to his cockpit-seated friend Edd, yelling amidst the ship's turbulent rumbling, "Bye-bye, Captain Double Dee!"

The ever-Ed-like, low-pitched, dimwitted tone in his voice had never ceased to amuse Edd, and it had continued to keep a smile on his face even as he watched his friend's escape pod eject from the side of the ship and far, far away.

And with that, Edd was now all alone on a rumbling ship that was already falling apart around him, even in mid-flight – his two best friends in the world, Ed and Eddy, with whom he had shared unforgettable childhood memories to this very day, were now falling through the atmosphere of a mysterious planet that he had absolutely no knowledge of whatsoever…what were the chances that they would ever see each other again? What were the odds that they would ever make it off of the planet and return home? Why was Ridley, the leader of the Space Pirates, heading there, as well? Had the Eds seen the last of these evil-minded aliens? Would they even survive the landing?

Edd asked himself these questions aloud as he swerved around in his pilot's seat and took the ship's controls once more, setting his coordinates, to the best of his ability, to a seemingly random location on the surface of the planet. After all, how was he to know where in the world he was going to end up? Taking a long, deep breath and setting his mind to attaining the goal of a safe landing, Edd quickly pulled a wall-mounted lever on his immediate left, activating what he believed to be the ship's "thrusters", and flew toward the vast planet that lay before him at an incrediblyf high speed.

He and his two friends were venturing forth into the unknown, in hopes of finding a light of hope amidst the dark mysteriousness that no doubt awaited them with feverish intent.

And so Ed, Edd and Eddy's adventures on the unknown planet of Tallon IV began.


	5. Lost in a New World

_**Chapter Five**_

_**Lost in a New World**_

Never once tread was the sullen, rain-soaked grass carpeted beneath the pallid, cloud-blanketed sky, encircled in a clearing by a halo of high-rising, lichen-ridden cliffs. Indeed, no innocent creature wise enough would have even attempted to enter the clearing, as peaceful as it had seemed – that is, if there were any innocent creatures remaining in the jungle-canyon hybrid that was once home to a myriad of laid-back life forms. It was true that nearly the entire population of the area had gone utterly extinct over a short time frame, but there had been some that survived. It did not matter if these beings were alive, though – they, too, had changed.

This grass, if it had a mind of its own, would have never suspected the coming of a second otherworldly force – the one that blazed down from the heavens, hurtling from unknown worlds with the intent of landing on this one remaining sanctuary in a world that was already lost to forces unknown.

Puncturing an oddly-shaped hole in the cloud-enshrouded sky, the ambiguous-looking object fell toward the ground at an incredible speed, cloaked with an extreme heat due to its piercing of the planet's atmosphere. A wild trail of darkened smoke and soot spurt sloppily from its tail end as it plummeted through the torrent of rain for what seemed like countless hours. Though it had appeared to be some sort of interstellar meteor, this vermillion-hued, compact object had exhibited truly strange behavior by, instead of continuing it's descent at an ever-increasing rate and crashing into the planet, it had instead begun to decelerate and stabilize just five-hundred feet above the ground.

Slowly, the extraterrestrial object found the stability required to hover downwards toward the ground with the intention of landing in the center of the clearing. Though exhibiting obvious signs of wear and disrepair, the object, seemingly with much difficulty, finally rested itself on the pristine, untouched grass and let out a moaning sigh as it came to a sudden rest.

At first the relatively large extraterrestrial object stood completely stalwart, apparently in a state of subdued slumber. In fact, the entire clearing exhibited absolute silence, save for the steady pitter-patter of falling rain hitting and trickling down the mysterious visitor's sleek, vermillion surface, as well as the rustling of man-sized leaves in the surrounding sky-scraping trees. Silence and solitude were obviously still present within the peaceful clearing, yet there was some sort of presence nonetheless. It was as if there was a tense atmosphere that just happened to be appallingly thick – the beast simply rested there for what seemed like ages, taking no action and exhibiting no strange features other than its unnaturally smooth and lustrous surface.

When the serenity of the environment had finally reached its peak once more, having lost it during this peculiar landing event, a sharp and sudden s_wish-clack_ echoed through the trees and off of the encompassing cliff walls – bird-like creatures scurried off of their residential branches and took flight in surprise, cawing in untranslatable bird-tongue as they soared off in search of safety. This interstellar, lustrous beast was a strange one, indeed – the foreign and seemingly technologically-oriented sound had emanated directly from it.

The steadily-falling rain never ceased in its downpour, even as a much stranger-looking foreign object reached its way out of the top of the sleek, extraterrestrial beast that had come from the stars – it was like nothing that this planet had ever seen before…at least, not in this particular shape. This new, yet significantly smaller being was unlike the large, stalwart behemoth that had just arrived in the clearing from the heavens – yes…life was present within this one, for what had reached out of the top of the vermillion object from the stars…was a human hand.

* * *

Painfully lifting himself out of the now-defunct starship that he had clumsily maneuvered through the deceptively cloudy atmosphere, Edd's wide-open eyes began to dart around in all possible directions at a frightening speed. His frail body was (and had been) trembling for numerous reasons, and all were perfectly feasible – for one, as far as he could tell, he had successfully made planet-fall and _lived_ (which was an outstanding accomplishment in itself), and what was more, the torrential downpour of rain that was already leaving him thoroughly soaked contributed greatly to his shivering.

His teeth chattering and his mind hazy and spinning, Edd found his balance, through much effort, and stood atop the severely-damaged starship that he now called his own and subconsciously inhaled the rich oxygen and nitrogen present in the horribly humid atmosphere. He found himself to be too disoriented to actively compare the environment he was now suddenly placed in to Earth's (granted, he had already been surprised by the fact that they were _extremely_ similar – at first he had thought that he was in the midst of a rocky clearing in the Amazon rainforest) – his mind was too focused on one simple fact that, for the moment, succeeded in comforting him to the greatest extent possible at the time:

_I'm alive._

Edd _was_ alive – this much was true. He had already shaken his limbs around in order to make sure that they were not broken or damaged in any way, and he had subconsciously thanked his good fortune for this. With this in mind, he began to take notice of his surroundings slowly as he attempted to shrug off his disorientation.

First off, it was raining, and judging by the endless pattern of overcast clouds extending far into the alien horizon, it did not appear as if it was going to cease anytime soon. The clearing he had made planetfall in seemed to be surrounded by a series of what appeared to be cliffs that were short enough to make climbing them possible. Before him lay a much smaller series of cliffs stacked onto one another that led off into what appeared to be some sort of cave – Edd could not tell exactly what it was or where it led to from where he was standing. To his upper-left lay a modest pond that trickled down in stream-form into a small cave-like area…possibly serving as a habitat to God-knows-what, and behind the ship rested a firm and well-aged wall of stone formally dressed with tangled lichen and fungi – Edd had to admit that it was quite the spectacle. Finally, to his right and slightly north of where he was, there appeared to be a path leading into yet another ambiguous-looking cave – the only thing that made this path more appealing than the others was the fact that it was actually physically accessible. The constant downpour had created miniature waterfalls that trickled down from the crevices in the clearing's rock walls, adding to the serene scene that would give any nature-enthusiast a 'warm feeling in his or her stomach'…or perhaps a heart attack.

At least Edd now had a general idea of what kind of environment he was placed in, and after his survey of the surrounding environment, he slowly and cautiously climbed his way down the right side of the compact starship and allowed himself to drop down to the rain-doused, ankle-high grass. In doing so, he allowed himself a small smirk of accomplishment – he was quite sure that he was now the first person to ever set foot on another planet, though he was absolutely certain that nobody would believe him when he made it back home.

_Home…_

Now _there_ was an idea. At this point, with Edd's environmental surveys more or less complete, the notion of returning to Earth had again made a jump to "top priority" status in Edd's mind. Yes, he had successfully landed on the planet Tallon IV as he had planned, but…what about Ed and Eddy? Were they perhaps located in the same vicinity as he, or had they been stranded in the farthest reaches of this new world, hundreds of thousands of miles away from this place?

Or were they…

"Oh, _stop it_, Eddward!" barked Edd to himself as the notion edged itself across the side of his mind. To think such horrid things now would only serve to hinder him in his thought process, which was absolutely critical at this stage.

First off, he needed to know exactly _where_ he was on Tallon IV, and, luckily for him, he knew how to access the necessary information. Tapping his pointer finger on the left side of his transparent visor, he gained access to information about his current location by initiating the Scan Visor function and tapping twice more in order to initiate a "general scan". Edd had always been quick to grasp concepts, especially when it came to technology, and this time it had really paid off – he now knew that he was located in a region of the planet known to the visor as the "Tallon Overworld". Though he was unfamiliar with the term "overworld", he assumed that it was referring to the fact that this rocky jungle was obviously on the outermost surface of the planet.

Noticing that he had been shivering under the constant deluge of rain, Edd's natural instincts had taken over and commanded him to find shelter before he was stricken with sudden pneumonia. His teeth chattering and his black beanie soaked completely through, his eyes darted around in hopes of finding some kind of resilient shelter under which he could rest and formulate his thoughts. The underside of the ship was, obviously, out of the question – for one thing, the fact that it was highly damaged and practically sweating sparks had made him quite paranoid of it, and who knew what harmful oils were leaking out? The surrounding cliffs were too steep to hide under, and most of the caves in the area were too difficult to access – either they were too high in altitude or too small to enter.

His fear of pneumonia eating away at him, Edd immediately remembered the other cave that was slightly to the right of his ship. Upon realizing this, a smile formed across his face similar to one that someone would have upon seeing a mirage in a desert, and, disregarding all rational thought and throwing caution to the wind, he immediately dashed toward it as quickly as his legs could carry him. Jogging clumsily up a step-like series of one-foot-high mini-cliffs, he stumbled his way into the dark, damp cave, struck his right arm accidentally against the gritty cave wall, and rested his back against it, panting heavily and wiping his face, which was already well-soaked at this point.

_Okay, Eddward,_ thought Edd as he caught his breath and proceeded to wring out his beanie – since nobody was currently present, this was the prime chance to do so (he was not too keen on revealing the dark mysteries that lay under his signature hat). _Calm down. You need to stay put, breathe deeply, and think about this for a moment…_

And so Edd slid down to the sandy ground and into a sitting position along the cave wall, the serene resting place of the thoroughly damaged ship to his right and what appeared to be a small pathway leading toward a garage-sized, circular section of the cave riddled with lichen and fungus too ambiguous to identify to his left, which produced yet another narrow passageway on the left wall that led a few feet to the left and then curved sharply right to who-knows-where. Edd's thoughts were nearly drowned out by the torrential downpour of rain that thundered beside him, though he let himself become accustomed to it, a process which took about two minutes. When he had successfully tuned out the constant deluge, he began to think about his situation.

_Alright…__I am located on an unknown planet, light-years away from Earth…I must try to accept this for a moment,_ Edd convinced himself, fighting off the urge to break into a screaming panic at the very thought of it. _I must remain calm…I must remain absolutely calm for my sake…as well as Ed and Eddy's sakes. Unfortunately, I cannot count on Ed to make any progress in initiating a rendezvous…and Eddy…well, let's not be silly and jump to conclusions!_

Edd's self-therapy and deep breathing did help in keeping his composure, and this was an accomplishment to be recognized, for not many would be able to remain calm just minutes after making planetfall on an unknown world. However, his musings _did_ drown out the incessant scritch-scratching and aggravated, high-pitched squealing noises coming from the larger portion of the cave just several feet to his right.

He lifted his arm cannon a few inches off of the ground (a heavy object indeed, he realized) and analyzed his own face in its lustrous, mirror-like surface – he noticed his bloodshot eyes and blinked several times in distaste. _If I can just bring myself to take it step by step, I may be able to meet up with my friends…_ he mused on. _Eddy would probably say 'who are you kidding, Sockhead? You're weak as a twig, you can't find your way through the woods back home!'_

Edd rotated the cannon at different angle, now examining the impressively reflective nature of its surface. _Who knows…perhaps he's right… No…no, who is he to determine what I'm capable of? No…I can do this. I can prove Eddy wrong and have us back on Earth in no time! In fact, I may be able to…_

Edd's thought process suddenly came to a halt when he noticed that there was irregularly rapid movement of some kind being reflected in the chrome-like surface of his arm cannon. In curiosity and not knowing exactly what to expect, he raised his head and gazed down the sand-carpeted cave hall, and upon setting his eyes upon the life forms moving toward him, he quickly let out a shriek of terror and immediately jumped to his armor-booted feet, his teeth chattering with fright.

Apparently, Edd's presence within the small cavern had disturbed the habitat of what appeared to be a pair of two-foot-tall, three-foot-long, spiky-carapaced beetle-like insects. In response to his arrival, they had begun to swiftly shimmy their way across the rough cave floor and snap at him with blade-sharp mandibles, both of which were roughly forearm-sized, glaring at him ravenously with a myriad of tiny, orange-tinted eyes and squealing in pig-like fashion.

Not wanting to flee back into the clearing and out into the rain again, Edd simply began to dance nervously in place and whip his arm cannon threateningly at the dog-sized…_insects_ crawling toward him. "_Look at the size of those insects…they're clearly far past their molting periods!_" screamed Edd to himself as he flailed his arm cannon about, failing miserably to intimidate the predators – these were _not_ the kinds of insects that Edd would have liked to analyze or keep in a containment tank. No…these beasts were clearly out to kill. "_Shoo! Go away!"_

But the beetle-creatures did not cease as they gradually closed in, boxing Edd in against the entrance of the cave (of course, if Edd had not been deathly afraid of contracting pneumonia, he would have been able to flee the situation without any trouble whatsoever). Both beasts stood three feet in front of him now, at what Edd had assumed to be an optimal killing range, and squealed in swine like manner as if to voice their primitive hunger. The anticipation must have been eating away at their very stomachs, for the beetle on Edd's left immediately lunged directly at Edd's face, its mandibles outstretched.

Thinking quickly but letting out an unattractive, primal scream of panic, Edd quickly, though clumsily, dodged to the right, preventing the beetle from clamping onto his skull and therefore causing it to fall to the ground. Though he was in a panicked state of mind, Edd's perceptive intelligence had yet to fail him, even in this situation – he quickly saw that the left beetle's attack had left a temporary opening that he could use to run right past the other!

With as much dexterity as he could muster, Edd forcefully pushed himself off of the cave wall, curved directly around the right beetle, and dashed as fast as he was able to through the cave, speeding past the large, circular portion and heading down the only remaining hallway. Following the simple L-shaped pathway, he emerged from the other end of the cave with a gasp of relief and exhaustion in full sprint. Suddenly hit with yet another barrage of pounding rain, Edd, with water already greeting him by splish-splashing against his clean visor, ran ahead several feet and then came to a sudden stop.

Clutching his chest in panic, Edd attempted to steady his breathing for the next ten seconds before realizing that such an attempt at doing so was hopeless. In fact, trying to slow his breathing to an acceptable level was not the _only_ hopeless task he had tried to overcome… What had he been _thinking_, landing on a blatantly alien planet in hopes of increasing his and his friends chances of _survival_? Of returning to _Earth?_ How ludicrous! Surely, he was an idiot to the utmost extreme!

"Ohhh, I'm such an incompetent fool!" cried Edd in dismay as he kicked his natural cowardice in the shin a few hundred times. "Such a troublesome ordeal this has turned out to be…if only fate had at least paired me with Ed or Eddy…though I would have preferred both, of course…I would not have to resort to running away with my _tail_ between my legs! Oh dear…curse my cowardice!" Still, he couldn't shrug off his pacifist tendencies.

Wiping his raindrop-speckled visor with his left hand a few times, he took in his surroundings through squinted eyes. The planet, he had thought, _felt_ alien, but certainly did not look it in the slightest – he was absolutely certain he had seen this scene from a textbook image displaying the Amazon rainforest. A nice little clearing he was in, with a small, mushroom-populated pond located a few feet in front of him, a series of small cliff-ettes acting as stairs to a higher portion of the rocky walls that encircled the area, and a nice, wide trail leading to what appeared to be a cave that was positioned just about twenty feet away.

Considering his overall lack of physical ability as well as favoring the idea of simply walking instead of jumping and climbing his way up the cliffs that lay before him (as "inviting" as they had seemed), Edd proceeded to travel to his right, along the unnaturally smooth, wide path that led to the ambiguous-looking cave. Sure, it was a dark, scary-looking _cave _that was most likely rife with rabid, flesh-consuming organisms twenty times his size, but where else could he possibly go? Back to the wrecked ship to tremble in fear in hope that Ed would somehow garner the intelligence required to actively search for him, or that Eddy would somehow exhibit the courage necessary to do the same? _Absolutely not,_ he thought - Edd knew his friends far too well to expect so much out of them.

He set foot along the path, his armored, slightly over-sized boot making an ear-perking _ffmph_ing noise against the soft, tender soil. Curious, Edd paused for a moment and looked down at the ground quizzically, an eyebrow raised. "Odd…" he muttered to himself, a bit surprised at the nature of the sound. "This soil seems to be quite worked and soft…the terrain at the landing site was _much_ more compact than this. In fact, it almost seems akin to the overall texture of the sand…in…the…_cave?!_"

The immense trembling that had suddenly emanated from the ground directly beneath his feet was enough to get Edd's legs moving down the path as fast as they could carry him. "_Oh, how the fates have turned against me this day!_" he shrieked in terror as legions upon legions of tricycle-sized, purple-hided beetles burst forth from the ground all around him, snapping at every section of his body ravenously as he hoped and prayed to the 'powers that be' that he would _not_ trip.

The cave door neared quite quickly, as Edd had obviously hoped, and as he continued running toward it, the number of rabid insects springing out all around him continued to increase at an insane rate. But he knew he could make it…with an all-out sprint, he would definitely survive! A wide smile stretched across Edd's face at the sight of the cave's entrance, now within his very grasp, completely disregarding the possibility of an even _worse_ fate waiting for him inside. "_You can do it, Eddward!_" he cried aloud with excitement – it seemed the forces of fate were really on his side after all! _He could feel the power! The speed! The adrenaline!_

…And he could see that one last beetle jump out of the cave and right toward his face, too.

"_Oh dear Lord!_" he shrieked in terror as he covered his visor with his left hand and raised his arm cannon in defense, hoping to block his rain-sodden face from the airborne, ravenous insect. He felt a distinct force against his right arm and knew that the beetle had struck the cannon - it had worked, as he had hoped!

Edd slowly uncovered his eyes so he could see where he was going – indeed, he had successfully made it into the cave. However, since everything was happening at such a fast rate (what with the pursuing stampede of hungry insects), he did not even bother gazing at his surroundings. At this point, thought, another notion struck him, and he looked at his arm cannon in order to see if any beetle-splatter had defiled its chrome-like beauty. Edd had always been something of a neat-freak compared to the other residents of Peach Creek (though this may be something of an understatement).

Well, to his relief, there were no signs of beetle-splatter on it. Instead, the whole _beetle_ had half of the cannon down its throat.

Edd, in a screaming panic, responded to this horrifyingly disgusting sight by nearly swallowing his tongue in surprise and slamming the insectoid freeloader against the rigid stone walls of the cave, scraping the bug-beast against it as he ran for his life from the oncoming stampede, until the arthropod came apart limb by limb and smeared off against the wall in a green, gooey mess. His eyes wide with repulse, Edd proceeded to gawk at the now ooze-soaked weapon that he was wearing over his forearm and had to forcibly prevent himself from vomiting on the spot – if he had stopped at this point, a brigade of ravenous beetles might have caught up with him and begun to feast. "_How disgusting!_" he shrieked femininely as he waved the apparatus around wildly, hoping to rid it of its new, slimy attire.

Amidst his heavy panting and the sound of his own feet _crish-crush_ing against the gritty cave floor, he did not notice that the atmosphere around him had suddenly changed in terms of temperature and humidity – a cold, dry air struck his entire body at once, diverting Edd's attention away from his arm cannon. Noticing this sudden atmospheric change, he quickly turned his head ninety degrees to the left in order to look ahead, but did so a moment too late, and found himself colliding flat against a few rows of solid, metallic rings positioned sideways at the end of the cave (as in, being stacked up as if it were the foundation of a building). One of the bars, in accordance with his height, ended up striking Edd right in the chest, knocking the wind out of him quite effectively, and another struck his stomach, which would have caused him to be instantly sick had he not already had his fill of doing so while he was on the _Orpheon_.

Unable to see straight and temporarily displaying the symptoms of forty/eighty vision, Edd pushed himself off of the large, black rings he had crashed into and began stumbling about dizzily, holding his chest in pain and muttering "ouch, ouch, ouch, _ouuuch_…" to himself all the while with increasing volume. Shaking his head from side-to-side, he performed a series of forceful blinks and eventually regained proper vision, allowing him to orient himself correctly and stand up straight and stalwart.

"That was…quite an experience…" Edd stammered aloud as he finished clutching his chest and moved on to rubbing his stomach, which still ached and threatened to "clean up shop" at any moment. Still, he sighed in relief upon noticing that the unnaturally tall opening in the cave that he had entered was entirely devoid of unnaturally large insects – apparently, the other beetles had stopped pursuing him, which he was undoubtedly grateful for. "Is it just me, or are highly evolved, _intelligent _human beings somehow placed at the very lowest point in the Tallon IV food chain?!" He grumbled to himself about his repeated misfortune and how a kid of his physical and mental stature did not belong in such a scenario. But hey, at least it was not raining inside the cave.

Edd took a step to the side, preparing to begin a survey of the room that he had just entered. However, he quickly stopped upon noticing something odd: instead of a _pish_-ing sound that his boot would normally make against a stereotypical dirty cave floor, he instead heard a hollow, metallic _cloonk_-ing noise. Looking downward, he could see that he was now standing directly in the center of what appeared to be a merry-go-round-sized, metallic disc that was residing in the center of the chamber. The rings that he had run into before were mimicking this circular shape in a pattern that led upward toward the ceiling of the cave (though there was an opening in the rings), acting like some kind of "cage". Looking upward, he could now see that the ceiling in this portion of the cave was much higher than in previous sections, extending to about ten feet tall, if he had to estimate. The room was quite sizeable, now that he had stopped to notice. Disappointingly, there was no harmless wildlife to be seen anywhere in the vicinity – not even a single lichen, to Edd's disappointment.

Noticing that it was now misaligned with his eyes, Edd slightly adjusted the position of his green-colored visor and rubbed his beanie-covered forehead with the backside of his left forearm – instead of feeling his own soft skin against his familiar beanie, however, he felt what seemed to be something akin to a metallic bar grating along it. Gazing quizzically at the backside of his left forearm, he suddenly remembered the grappling apparatus, the "Grapple Beam", he and his two friends had equipped before heading into the _Orpheon_ not too long ago.

The _Orpheon_…

"Come to think of it," said Edd to himself, putting his left hand to his chin as he characteristically entered yet another state of deep thought. "This could prove to be an opportune time to settle down and develop some strategy. After all, I simply cannot act rashly and explore the topography of this mysterious world on a whim – oh no, that will never do. Such trifling details to attend to and consider…ergh, what a taxing predicament this is! Ooooh, curse my environmentally curious ways!

"At this point, the most logical action to take would be to find a path leading out of this dreaded 'Tallon Overworld' region," he continued, musing to himself. "Then, I can concentrate my efforts on locating the escape pods that Ed and Eddy used to escape the ship. Right, well, this sounds like an ingenious strategy in the making! You're so intellectual and cunning, Eddward!"

He chuckled to himself in his signature, high-pitched voice and took in a deep breath of the horribly stale cave air (which he practically forced his lungs to accept). He could not tell if he was experiencing a sudden burst of courage and enthusiasm or if he was going slightly mad "It's time to think positively and not resort to cowardly tactics! Yes, it is time to face the biological and geographical challenges that lie before me and find my two beloved companions! From this moment onward, I, Eddward, will acknowledge that things cannot possibly get any worse!"

…And as _soon_ as he had barely finished pronouncing the word "worse", a heart-stopping, planet-shaking sound very akin to a tremendous explosion rushed through the cave and into Edd's ears, almost knocking him out cold. In addition, at the _exact same time_ of this catastrophic sound, an earthquake with a magnitude higher than Edd had ever experienced in his entire life caused the entire planet to tremble as if it were going to collapse and explode outward at any moment. Edd had always wondered what in the world it would feel like to be present on a planet being struck by an asteroid the size of the moon – this was _far_ beyond anything he had ever expected.

"_W-what in G-God's name is happening?! An asteroid…has an asteroid struck the planet?!_" Edd cried out in horror, unable to hear himself think, let alone keep his balance over the deafening rumbling of the cave as well as the horrible, cataclysmic noise that continued to pierce the atmosphere. "_Curse my horrible timing! Stupid Eddward! Stupid Eddwa-"_

_Ker-clunk!_ A heart-stopping, metallic groan from below had caused Edd to promptly look at where he was standing, and his eyes widened in absolute terror as he noticed that the large, metallic disc that he had been standing on all this time had just jarred itself loose from the ground and had suddenly lowered itself about two feet. Amidst the terrible rumbling and the painful cries of the planet itself, Edd had come to a horrid realization – perhaps the final realization that he would ever have in his entire life: the "disc" that he had been standing on was not just an ordinary metallic floor like he had initially thought.

It was a lid.

With a decisive, bone-shattering _pah-shoom_, the huge metallic disc gave way from under Edd's feet and descended at a rate of about eighty miles per hour down a cave-like shaft that led to who-knows-where. Down and down it went, toward the far reaches of Tallon IV, plummeting through the planet at neck-breaking speed, having been jarred loose by this catastrophic, earth-shattering event. And on this death-elevator was an ordinary, intellectual boy named Edd: a screaming, unwilling passenger on a ride to an unknown land…perhaps even to his death. Yes, things had truly gotten _far_ worse than Edd could have ever imagined.

They had gotten _worst_.

* * *

"Hey! Eddy! Double Dee? Come out, come out, wherever you are, guys!"

Only the walls had the ability to give a response, yet all they really did was simply repeat what he had said in the form of an echo. The chamber was so thickly glazed with ice, too, that he could see himself quite clearly as if he were looking straight into a mirror. What was stranger (or perhaps worse, some might say) was that this chamber had been acting like a natural prison – the escape pod had crashed through the tall, white-blanketed cliffs and had burrowed itself deeply into the reservoir of a frigid lake. The only source of illumination present within the otherwise black chamber was the large beam of light shining down from the sky and onto the ruins of the already-ejected escape pod, the door of which had already been thrust off.

Ed had not even considered just how grateful he should have been just to be alive.

He had been spending a good fifteen minutes since his escape pod had crashed into this chamber by simply wandering around, fruitlessly calling the names of his dearest friends, and slipping and sliding on the ice-glazed floor of the gray-stoned cave. He had not come to the realization that perhaps neither Edd nor Eddy could hear him from where he was, but he _had_ eventually noticed that it was quite cold in the room. Frightfully cold, to say the least. What did not help was that Ed had not been able to find any exit whatsoever – he was completely trapped within this living-room-sized ice cavern (at least he made the effort to search, though – that would usually deserve a cookie). The only company that he had at the moment was a huge stalagmite jutting out in the center of the room, but that was about it. Needless to say, Ed had not grown entirely lonely just yet.

"Whoa, it is _cold_!" surmised Ed, beginning to shiver and move side-to-side nervously, his already-messed-up instincts commanding him to somehow keep warm. "Oh, I know! This must be the evil Doom Freezer that the invaders from the Durk Nebula used to preserve their hideous space mutants!"

It was at that moment when Ed had suddenly stepped out of his natural, self-warming stance and into one of alertness, his eyes darting all around and his arm cannon pointing straight ahead of him, expecting a hideous intergalactic monster to jump out at any second and attack him. "I've seen this before!" he muttered to himself with an increasingly epic-sounding tone in his voice – the kind that Ed almost always exhibited. "The lone Galactic Warrior becomes trapped within the slimy cave walls, with nowhere to run! How will he ever survive?!"

Suddenly, Ed's peripheral view had detected something suspicious – perhaps movement to the far north side of the room? In quick response, he swiftly shifted his aim into this direction, his eyes growing wider with anticipation and the shape of his mouth curling into an intimidating snarl. "Then the mutants start closing in, hungry for the skin on his bones, _which they-will-use-to-make-their-sup-per_!"

Of course, as was characteristic of Ed, the hideous space aliens that he was currently "seeing" were nonexistent – his imagination had always stretched the boundaries of reality in his perspective.

"_Come at me, you brain-sucking monsters of the sun!_" roared Ed, his voice echoing directly back at him off of the walls as he charged straight toward the supposed "source" of the movement. He thought he could see it…he could have sworn…yes, it was getting closer! In fact, it was charging straight at him as well…who would win the clash? The suspense gripped at his throat, _grated at his non-existent mind!_

"_Prepare to meet yo-_"

The mind-numbing earthquake that suddenly struck had rendered Ed's words unspoken. The horrible jarring of the planet had caused Ed's body to fly upwards at an incredible speed toward the ice-glazed ceiling of the chamber. Finding his current predicament quite odd, and noticing that, amidst the deafening rumbling, he could not hear himself speak nor think (the latter of which he was almost incapable of doing in the first place), he broke out in hearty laughter, letting out one triumphant cry of "_Woohoo! This is fun!"_

With an eye-squinting _ker-smack_, Ed collided headfirst into the smooth, yet incredibly durable, cave ceiling, knocking him out instantly. He fell back down onto the ice-rink surface of the cavern unconsciously and dreamt of chickens, sheep, and X's-and-O's. Even amidst the apocalyptic quake that the entire planet was undergoing, he still found peace in his forced slumber – for this was the nature of Ed.

This was the nature of one young man lost in an unknown land.


	6. The Mystery of the Chozo

_**Chapter Six**_

_**The Mystery of the Chozo**_

Dry. Completely and utterly dry. Dehydration and heaviness…and such horrible, horrible pressure from the inside. Constantly_…constantly. _Eyeballs…eyeballs nearly bulging out of their sockets. Tongue…shriveled and papery in texture. Taste? What was taste? With a paper tongue and a mouth as arid as the Sahara, taste was a preposterous notion. Full to the brim…at least, only his head. His head – a casket completely full to the breaking point. His throat, too. _Scritch-scratch, scritch-scratch_. Itchiness on the inside…

His mouth was itchy. Eddward's mouth was itchy, as was his throat. Tremendously itchy…_horribly itchy._ His eyes saw but blackness…he could not think, either. His brain had been completely shut off, with the rest of his body focusing on this…this unbearable itchiness. So itchy…_so murderously itchy._ And oh, dear Lord, the pressure was incredible. He fought against his nerves and mind in order to regain some sort of consciousness, or at least some awareness of what exactly was occurring inside of him. Oh _man,_ he could not stand it…the itchiness, the dryness. _His mouth and throat were so horribly dry…_

Eddward's world returned in a brilliant flash of light as his field of vision suddenly came back into focus. Obviously, he could have cared less about his sudden state of consciousness. He was much more concerned with propping himself onto his knees and coughing up a pint of crystalline sand that had been clogging up his throat. His squinted eyes watered as if his tear ducts had gone haywire as he attempted to at least stand while his body forcefully removed the last few handfuls of sand. It felt horrible – he never thought much of it when watching "stranded on a desert island" movies, where the same thing happened to the protagonist upon washing up on shore. He may have squinted in disgust a few times while watching, but besides that, he had never thought much of it. No one in their right mind would have ever expected to find themselves in such a ridiculous situation, right?

He punched his chest a few times with his left hand in order to force out a few final coughs once he had felt that he was pretty much sandless. As he did so, he tried his best to look around through watery, squinted eyes. He did not remember passing out like that, that was for sure.

Of course, what he observed did support his idea of what had occurred. The fact that the "lid" (or death-elevator, to be certain) was now situated behind him, with a seemingly endless shaft extending through the cave's ceiling toward what he had guessed to be the Tallon Overworld seemed to prove that the impact of the "elevator" had caused Edd to be immediately knocked out and thrown several feet ahead onto the sand-blanketed cave floor.

"That was…quite an experience," remarked Edd dizzily amidst small fits of coughing as he slowly stood up on trembling legs, his metal-booted feet digging into the thin layer of sand. "Really, I don't see the necessity of a senseless _earthquake_ striking an entire planet at such an inopportune time…"

Of course, he had no idea if the massive trembling that had taken place a moment before the "elevator" fell had really been a simple earthquake – he was sure that something extraterrestrial had struck Tallon IV. "Perhaps I'll find the cause of the earthquake if I continue on…and I may as well get a feeling for where exactly I have wound up."

Scratching his beanie (which, inadvertently, scratched his head), Edd shrugged off his sight-obscuring, cloudy daze and subconsciously allowed his curiosity to lead him down the sandy path that lay before him, which no doubt led even deeper into the cave he found himself in. He could see through his peripheral view that, strangely, the cave walls that surrounded him were far smoother in texture than the ones he saw in the Tallon Overworld. To add to this mystery, Edd had noticed that, just a foot above him, there was something hanging off of the ceiling by a five-inch-long wire…

"A…light bulb?" muttered a puzzled Edd as he looked upward, squinting his eyes so as to blot out the blinding light, prodding the luminary object with his left pointer finger. "Well, I'll be…who would have thought that one of these would turn up in such a natural environment?"

Turning his attention elsewhere (with his vision temporarily blotted with various colors due to his staring into the light bulb's glow), he grazed his left hand on one of the cave walls as he proceeded down the sandy path. "Come to think of it…" he remarked, his eyebrows raised with intrigue. "These cave walls are much too smooth to have been caused by natural erosion." He glanced back at the light bulb, which he had already passed at this point. "Could this perhaps signify that…this path was artificially constructed…by _other life forms_?"

Edd turned his head once more to see where he was going, but found that a brilliant flash of light had suddenly robbed him of all vision and caused a searing pain to infiltrate his eyes. He groaned with irritation as he used his hefty arm cannon to block off the intense luminosity of the alien sun that had just revealed itself. Of course, he attempted to look onward through squinting eyes anyway – after all, the presence of natural light meant that he had just exited the cave. As his eyes adjusted to the sudden change in illumination, Edd had begun to take in what suddenly lay before him.

And what an unexpected sight, indeed! Edd's vision instantly revealed what appeared to be a rather large, stone-crafted, faded-orange arc that stood triumphantly about fifteen feet away from his position, serving as an unexpectedly formal entrance to a pathway that led even further into the unknown. To be mundane, it looked, more or less, like an ancient, perhaps Roman-crafted garage fused with a miniature version of the Arc de Triomphe.

Spilling out from the raised floor beneath the arc was a large path completely comprised of sand, and the pathway leading to it was guarded by age-worn, high-reaching, seemingly Greek-crafted stone pillars that were apparently made of the same, faded-orange stone and brick as the gateway. To Edd's dismay, some of the constructs had been quite eroded over time, and were left shattered and broken, their remains scattered amidst the timeless sands that he was standing on. But…maybe that was what had made it so brilliant in the first place!

"My word…" mumbled Edd, his eyes growing with wonder as he marveled over what he had likened to the entrance of an ancient Roman tomb. "Now I am absolutely certain that this planet was…or perhaps _is_… inhabited by highly intellectual bioforms! Good Lord, just look at this architecture! The Roman stylings are so blatantly apparent in its design…incredible…"

His words trailed off as his wonder-levels had begun to rise exponentially. Already Edd could see the stark contrast between the mundane environment of the Tallon Overworld and the ancient ruins that he had found himself in now…oh man, _ruins_. If Edd had just arrived in an area that might actually be classified as _ruins_…he would have a field day.

And he was already having one, of course. Stepping up to the garage-door-sized stone gateway that stood before him, Edd could only wonder what mysteries would reveal themselves as he continued onward. "_Clearly_ the extraterrestrials that constructed this fine monolith could never present themselves as hostile," he mused as he stepped onto the smooth stone that lay directly under the tall arc, looking upward at the interior of the structure instead of gazing straight onward into the path that it led to. "If Ed were here, he would be so thrilled to learn of the possible existence of alien life forms! Perhaps I could speak to their ambassador and learn of…"

He gasped as he came to a sudden realization – a hopeful smile stretched across his face as his mind left the realm of rationality. "…and learn of a way to return to Earth!" He bit his lower lip and tried to prevent himself from fainting with glee. Looking upward at the wall, just above the pathway that led further into the unknown, Edd had noticed something that struck him as quite peculiar.

There appeared to be a small engraving in the rock that the arc seemed to be composed of, and it was hanging just above the passageway's entrance, almost like a painting inset into a wall. It was pretty sizeable, probably about the size of a large welcome mat, but what struck Edd as odd was that it appeared to be made of water. _Water_, simply plastered to the wall as if it were on display… Just…a sheet of water. But then he noticed that behind the liquid there seemed to be small markings that he could not identify from where he was – the engraving was about three feet higher than his head.

"What in the world…" muttered Edd as he stared quizzically at the strange, liquid-coated engraving, prodding the side of his visor as he began to scan its contents. "I've never seen anything quite like it. Is it just simple decoration or…_oh my!_"

A wall of plain, computerized text had suddenly filled up Edd's vision. Apparently, his Scan Visor had just translated the markings that were on the water-covered engraving above him into contemporary English. "Could this be…" gasped Edd, his eyes widening with wonder. "…_an alien record?!_"

His entire body became tense with overbearing excitement as he read the translated text splayed across his vision:

_At the highest point of our city lies the fountain, a wellspring of pure water that flows throughout our civilization. It is the jewel of the Chozo, the life-giver, and yet its waters speak of a clouded future. As we come to understand the paths of time and space more clearly, we have begun to glimpse rough tatters of past and future, glittering behind reality like soft lights behind a curtain. We have seen the fountain in these glimpses, pouring darkness instead of water, and we cannot guess what the visions mean._

_Nor can I_, thought Edd as his eyes scanned the luminous, light green-colored sentences over and over again, not believing that an alien civilization…_intelligent_ enough, could encode such elaborate lore. He was right in his deduction that it was indeed an alien record, and, if he was reading the data log correctly, the aliens had referred to themselves as…

"The…'Chozo'? The…'_Chozo'…_if I'm pronouncing that correctly," muttered Edd, unaware that he was practicing his usual bad habit of talking aloud to himself while resting his rather wide and prominent chin on the back of his curled fingers, creating a rather contemplative gesture. "As astounding and…scientifically _groundbreaking_ as discovering an ancient lore left by an alien civilization truly is, I can't help but wonder what exactly the message entails."

Also displaying his habit of pacing while he spoke to himself, Edd walked through the passageway that the arch seemed to be decorating, apparently without noticing. There was so much that was on his mind now…Ed, Eddy, the earthquake from before, and now these "Chozo"…

Edd quickly shook his head in order to shrug off his state of contemplation and, now aware that he had stepped through the passageway, looked at what lay before him.

Out before the intelligent Earthling stretched what he had only hoped to see in the well-known tourist sites of Rome, Greece, and perhaps even Egypt. Gallons of sand carpeted the timeless ground of what could have been best described as a time-worn and heavily-eroded stone-worked city that has now been reduced to forgotten ruins of extrasolar days gone by. Stepping down from the raised ground that he had entered on, Edd marveled at the sights that had strewn themselves across his vision. A cracked, weathered, but sturdy-seeming old building, possibly no bigger than Peach Creek jock Kevin's house, rested sturdily before him across the sand-covered plaza that he now found himself in, its design mostly rectangular and cubical in nature. To his right grew an awkwardly-developed native tree, its gray-barked, thick form squiggling wildly skyward as its branch-tips adorned leaves with an Earthly, autumn hue. Behind the tree lay yet another rather large, bronze-age building of grand proportions. To his left lay an even larger building, colored an age-worn, faded light brown (as were all of the buildings in the cul-de-sac-sized plaza), a dark passageway leading further into it. Further off in the distance, past the Kevin's-house building and up a series of large steps, lay the end of the plaza, obstructed by a high-reaching, cracked and corroded stone wall, with withered plant life hanging from its corners and crevices. Dark, green-tinted clouds brooded in the sky, giving fair warning of a possibly oncoming rainstorm, while the late-afternoon alien sun created a sky of light green and faded orange color.

One would not have to be Edd's best friend to deduce that he was indeed marveled by these alien, ancient wonders…these age-old Chozo ruins.

"At last..." stammered Edd, his voice aquiver and his eyes growing wide in shock. His left hand was glued tightly to his chest in case he needed to clutch his heart to prevent cardiac arrest. "At…_last!_ Oh, how I have dreamed of the days when I could explore archaic ruins of the past, divulge in the architecture of days gone by! Not only that, but who would have _guessed_ that I would be so fortunate as to stumble upon the ruins of an _alien_ civilization!"

Not particularly minding the fact that the slow and steady wind that wisped around the ruins threatened to blow crystalline sand up his shirt, Edd mused on, temporarily forgetting about the imperativeness of his mission to find his friends, as he just allowed his eyes to soak in the world around him. At least there wasn't any _rain_ here.

"So these must be the ruins of the Chozo civilization that I've just uncovered…how intriguing. Oh, how I wish I could partake in closer examination of these ruins…they seem harmless enough…"

Edd stood still at this realization and looked around quickly, eyeing the different areas of the remarkable, eroded plaza that he was now standing in. Who _knew_ what marvels had occurred in this spot when the Chozo inhabited it? What incredible design and architecture! Sure, the buildings were rather blocky and primitive-Egyptian in nature, but still…they were probably millennia-old! How exciting was that?

It hardly was, to be honest, but Edd was one who took great excitement into these kinds of things. His eyes set on the seemingly inviting passageway that the nearest building (the one on his immediate left) offered, Edd did a slight hop of excitement as he wondered what marvels awaited him within the structure. "Well, since Eddy is not around at the moment to object to such studies…I suppose a little excavation wouldn't hurt!" It seemed a good enough excuse, for Edd was already jogging inside the structure, heading off to explore the history of the strange Chozo that he had become so incredibly intrigued about.

* * *

His mind a-race, Edd hummed to himself excitedly as he trotted through the short, square-shaped, stone-carved hallway that served as the archaic building's entrance. At this point, he did not care about any biological threat that could be posed against him – he was too preoccupied with having the privilege of being the first human to ever study alien archaeology!

His spirits sunk just a tad as he noticed that the smoothly-crafted walls did not display Egyptian-style hieroglyphics as he had hoped…but perhaps there was something even _more_ exciting than that waiting for him! His lips curled in a tight smile, Edd reached the end of the hallway and looked analytically at the impediment that lay before him.

There seemed to be a five-foot-tall stone wall that was obstructing his path – this was a darn shame due to the fact that the fifteen-foot-high ceiling in the large chamber that lay behind it seemed to be too extra-interesting to pass up. It just seemed to be…a faded-orange, solid gate, just blocking his way into a wondrous archaic room. His eyebrows lifted and the ends of his lips sagged into a disappointed frown as he looked at the intimidating, almost _random_ obstruction with confusion.

"Well, _this _is inconvenient," he complained, lifting his left hand palm-up in the air in a "what-the-heck-is-up-with-that?" gesture. "Here I am with racing adrenaline and thoughts of extraterrestrial discovery, and the Chozo have to be intricate enough to block the path of intuitive minds!" Even when completely alone, Edd had a knack for spouting confusing speech.

Granted, he also had a talent for observation, for as his eyes scanned the wall, he noticed that there was a beach-ball-sized hole in its bottom-left corner. His eyes rested upon the unusually inviting hole for a few seconds, and as he continued to wonder what could possibly be waiting for him on the other side of the wall, his shoulders sank as he let out an exasperated sigh. "Curse my archeological curiosity…" he muttered as he lowered himself to his knees and, holding his breath so that he wouldn't inhale the no-doubt unsanitary dust and dirt, crawled baby-style through the six-foot-long hole, his claustrophobia kicking him in the brain all the while.

Grunting in spinal discomfort, Edd slowly arose from his uncomfortable position and tried to ignore the cramping in his stiff knees. "The things I do for scientific discovery," complained an annoyed Edd as he swept the dust and dirt that had carpeted his orange shirt and red, knee-height socks. "Messy, messy…"

Of course, considering the fact that the area he had entered – an age-worn, square-shaped, sand-and-stone-carpeted arena of sorts with the overall width of a large garage and a height of two stories – was quite intriguing and proved to be excellent ancient eye candy (at least to him), he was willing to shrug off the fact that he was coated in age-old filth.

To be more precise, the walls of the rather large chamber were most definitely constructed of brick, given the fact that there were numerous of these small blocks scattered alongside the room's borders, having fallen out of their place due to erosion and whatnot. The sand that carpeted the room's floor was quite sparse, revealing quite a bit of tiled brick underneath, giving Edd the impression that there had been a horrible sand-spill at some point in these ruins' history. Artificial, blue-colored lights were scattered sparsely along the walls at differing heights and had illuminated the hollow chamber – a good thing, too, for if it had been any more dark than it was, Edd would have scrambled back into that hole posthaste. Perhaps most interesting, though, was the fact that, at the northern end of the chamber, about twenty feet away, there was an absence of brick…in fact, it looked as if someone had plowed through the wall with a bulldozer and had revealed the architectural framework behind it. A grand shame, to say the least.

Edd winced in disgust as the smell of strong humidity mixed with the heady aroma of dirt and…something else…something organic…wafted into his nostrils. "Well, if there's one thing I can be certain of…" he sputtered as his eyes began to water. "Is that this construct is obviously age-worn to the point that it seems to be…rotting?" His voice echoed off of the stone walls of the hollow, vastly humid chamber. In terms of looks and presentation, the room was quite marvelous to the eye, but it smelled like an uncleaned attic and felt like a maltreated greenhouse.

Disappointingly, though, there was really not much to see here – he had already observed more stunning architecture outside of this building, and he could not place his finger on exactly what the purpose of the room was. He thought for a moment that the artificial lights on the walls were a _tad _interesting at best, but his newfound desire to leave due to the strong stench of the chamber had finally gotten hold of him.

"Well, this isn't exactly the jumpstart into archeological adventure that I had been hoping for," shrugged Edd as he began to turn around to crawl back into that no doubt filthy hole again. "I can only pray that future chambers will be more-"

_Eeeeeaaaark!_

Edd's natural instincts had immediately surfaced as he staggered back, eyes wide open and knees trembling with shock at the sight of the pig-sized, ravenous beetle that had just pounced onto his chest, gripping his shirt tightly and shrieking into his horror-stricken face.

"_Lord Almighty!_" screamed a heart-sunken Edd as he began to stagger and dance around, trying to pry the rabid arthropod off of his shirt with his left hand and using his arm cannon as a shield in order to prevent the creature's mandibles from ripping off his face. "_Get it off, get it off, get it off of me!_" The insect formidably pushed past the cannon and quickly snapped at Edd's nose, but natural instincts caused Edd to turn his head to the right, avoiding the creature's lethal attack. As he had turned his head, though, he could not help but shriek at the sights and sounds that were filling his vision and ears.

Beetles…dozens of them…bursting from the brick and dirt-covered ground of the chamber. He could not count them even if he had been given time to sit around and do so. This wasn't even a simple pack of beetles like he had encountered before…no, this was a _herd. _There had to have been at least twenty of the ravenous beasts bursting from the ground, emitting guttural shrieks as they scurried toward him, snapping at his ankles intimidatingly.

_Of course…this was the source of that objectionable, organic odor!_ thought Edd as he used his arm cannon to forcefully shove the insect off of his chest. _This is a nest…this is a nesting ground for these beetles!_

"Curse my insatiable archeological curiosity!" whispered Edd to himself as he swung his arm cannon at the beetles, which were now positioned mere feet away from him. They snapped at his ankles, pounced at his shins, and even threatened to make a leap for his head, and in doing so, effectively backed him into a corner.

"For heaven's sake, _I'm a pacifist!_" cried Edd as he blocked his face with his left hand and continued his failed, mundane physical threats toward the insects. They were moving closer toward him, their mandibles almost nibbling at his feet, their multiple, radioactive-green eyes staring at him with hunger. Edd's own eyes, which had been darting around most of the time, had eventually caught a glimpse of one particular insect, which had apparently reared itself back…this was obviously not a good sign…it was going to pounce!

With a primal, high-pitched shriek, the one beetle charged at Edd, preparing to jump straight at his face. The young boy closed his eyes and yelled in fright, awaiting the inevitable deathblow.

However, even after about five seconds of perspiration, shaking, and whimpering, Edd still did not feel the jagged mandibles of the beetles tearing his body apart. Nervously, and with trembling legs, he slowly opened his left eye and gazed at the army that had cornered him…and his fear was kicked out of his mind's cockpit in favor of confusion.

The beetles has ceased in their threats and murderous cries, and instead…now this was strange…had backed _away_ from him, even going so far as to positioning themselves no less than a foot away from the chamber's walls – what was even more eerie was the fact that they had suddenly become very silent…and at this point, very, very still.

One would have expected Edd to have been relieved to be given this opportunity to live and possibly even escape…at this point, by all means, he should have been shouting an Edd-typical phrase such as "oh happy day!" or "well, I am astounded!" However, the only input that he had on this new scenario was the increasing wideness of his eyes. His trembling hand gripped his arm cannon nervously, which was pressed against his chest (and how he hated the inconvenience of this contraption rendering his right hand useless!).

_Oh dear…what could these insatiable predators possibly be conceiving now?_ thought Edd, too astoundingly afraid to make any sudden movements or even utter the slightest murmur, all in fear that these beasts would simply charge him once again. _The nature of their organization suggests that they could possibly revolve around some sort of hive mind…are they perhaps laying low like tigers, waiting for their helpless pray to make any sudden moves?_

He tossed his thoughts around in his mind, trying to strategically think up his next course of action – what could he have done, though? For all he knew, his next move could have been his last. The countless, glowing eyes scanned him endlessly, making him feel uncomfortably like a naked man in front of a stadium-size audience…or a gazelle in the midst a lion's den. The hole that he had entered from was only…what, maybe four feet away at this point…he was on the adjacent wall, and he _could have _made a run for it. He pondered this idea, but ultimately decided to forego an attempt at an all-out dash for the hole and instead opted to take very_, very_ small steps. _This_ would most definitely tax his nerves…

Inhaling deeply and clutching his chest with fright, Eddward lifted his right foot _slowly_ into the air...and, with a clearly audible, nervous gulp, set it down _as slowly as humanly possible _on the solid, stone floor.

_Kk-krnch…_

There was only a split-second of silence between the sound of his metallic, black space-jump boot settling on the floor and the deafening crash that came from the center of the chamber. Shattered brick and sand flew in multiple directions, striking the stone walls and breaking several artificial lights, and even crashing into the exoskeletons of numerous beetles. No…these insects had not been graceful. They had not decided to let Edd free. They had simply made room for something…bigger.

"Oh…_dear_," stammered Edd as he lay his eyes on the monstrosity that had just emerged from the initially safe-looking chamber floor.

The problem did not lie in the fact that _this_ creature was virtually identical to the other beetles that were presently bordering the room – in fact, the only difference was that it's exoskeleton was slightly metallic-gray in color in contrast to the typical dark-violet, organic hue that others displayed. The beast was definitely larger…perhaps even twice as large as the average beetle…making it about the size of an average farmyard animal (Rolf's humble, yet horribly awkward goat Victor instantly came to mind). It was definitely facing toward him, shaking off the dirt and soot that had initially encrusted its hard-plated exoskeleton, its six bony legs sidestepping sporadically, almost hyperactively, similarly to how a typical crustacean would.

There was something strange about this beetle…well, to say "strange" would have been a dramatic understatement…there was something horribly _frightening_ about it, which lay in the fact that instead of the pig-like, sharp-mandibled face that these insects usually had, this species had what appeared to be a gigantic, bony, rhombus-shaped _mask_ of some sort where its head should have been. It was about as large as the rest of its body, with four, six-inch horns protruding out of its four corners and one on its top…not to mention the two-foot long one pointing out of its very center! Where on earth were its _eyes_?

This was no ordinary insect…this was a bulldozer…a _ramming_ machine…

_An…alpha beetle?! _deduced Edd correctly, for he, with his incredible and vast knowledge of zoology, knew that he was now being sniffed out by the leader of this ravenous pack of arthropods.

_Eeeaaaaark!_

Just the grating, ear-shattering screech of the insect had caused Edd to simply stumble as clumsily as he could several feet to the right. Oh _God_, what a horrible sound…nails scraping against a blackboard would be a dwarf of an example compared to this! Edd closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, letting out a pained cry as he stumbled away from the wall while the alpha beetle had done exactly what Edd had expected – it had plowed straight into the chamber's stone wall with what he had presumed to be the momentum of a speeding truck. Edd quickly looked over his shoulder just in time to see the insect pull its horns out of the wall and face him again – it did not take a rocket scientist to determine that the beast had originally been aiming to skewer _him _on its sharp, nature-honed horns.

"_Ge…Get away!_" screamed Edd as he broke out in an all-out run in the complete opposite direction. How in the heck could he have warded this creature off? Doing so would have been…like a toddler… on a _tricycle…_ trying to overrun an oncoming steam engine!

_Who in their right mind would be foolish enough to try to pacify such a rabid beast?! Given the smooth texture of its…head, any subsequent blasts from my arm cannon would surely be deflected!_ thought Edd, his mind positively racing as he tried to concoct of way out of this situation – the beetles had now congregated and were effectively obstructing his escape, he had noticed, by blocking out the hole he had entered from, and the alpha beetle…

_Oh dear, it's approaching again!_

To be honest, and though he would never admit it, Edd's clumsiness was working to his advantage. He had turned around in order to see if he could make some sort of mad, fruitless dash for the exit, but had instead tripped on his own ankle and collapsed awkwardly to the right, his chin striking the gritty, solid floor with a _smack_.

Still, he would have preferred getting an insignificant bruise on his face rather than being rammed head-on by that insatiable alpha beetle – the beast had once again missed its target and collided straight into the wall, plowing through a hapless beetle subordinate, splattering green, bubbly ooze all over the wall as well as on its own pristine mask. While its elongated facial horns were still stuck in the wall, Edd scrambled quickly to his feet, hoping to get a head start in this cat-and-dog chase he had found himself in. He honestly had no ideas concerning a possible escape from his predicament…he just wanted to stay alive as long as possible, and he had his doubts that Ed or Eddy would miraculously show up to rescue him, as much as he wanted to believe it would happen.

Before he broke out once again into an all-out run, something strange caught his eye. It was something that was on the alpha beetle's body…where its tail should have been, he wagered. Given, this genus of beetles should not have been the owners of tails to begin with, but this particular species had something else there. It appeared to be some sort of…bright red, glowing sac of…well, who-knows-what. Whatever it was, though, Edd could tell that it was most definitely…

"…A weakness?"

His mind working quickly, Edd promptly raised his arm cannon, temporarily foregoing his pacifist philosophies in favor of _living_, and made a quick series of trigger-pulling motions with his pointer finger, the barrel of his gun pointing directly at the sac growing from the insects' posterior. Instantly, several rapid-fire, luminescent shots came blasting out of his interstellar weapon, and the noise of stereotypically futuristic laser-fire filled the room.

…The creature's instincts, however, were keen – keener than Edd had initially suspected. The beast quickly dislodged its head from the punctured stone wall and swiftly faced Edd just in time to use its mask to "shield" itself from the volley of energy shots – Edd's hypothesis had indeed been correct, for his blasts had subsequently bounced off its smooth plating and struck the chamber's high ceiling…completely off the mark.

Edd's eyes opened widely as he slowly backed away, knowing that somewhere inside that haunting, plated mask, the alpha beetle had to have been smiling victoriously.

"_Drat!_" he whispered as he tried to dive out of the way, dramatically outstretching his arms in order to "fly" farther (Edd was a genius at aerial physics – it was simply better not to ask). As he temporarily flew through the air and sailed toward the ground, however, he felt an incredibly jarring _ka-thunk! _against his right foot…right against his metallic space-jump boot. This force had sent him spiraling, almost like a helicopter's propeller, toward the ground, where he subsequently landed flat on the ground and skidded two feet along the sand-speckled floor. Edd felt the hard floor scrape against his chin, chest and legs – his pressed, orange shirt and subdued-violet shorts had done _nothing _for him in terms of physical protection.

Aching and scratched in a vast number of places all over his body, Edd slowly attempted to push himself off of the ground and at least make an attempt to stand up, but this was a task in itself. "Ow, ow, ow, ow…" he stammered through clenched teeth and teary eyes…oh _God_ it was painful…his entire frontal body was no doubt thoroughly scraped and bruised at this point. He winced through the pain as he momentarily forgot about the presence of that vivacious alpha beetle and staggered clumsily to his feet.

_That…blasted arthropod rammed directly…directly, I tell you, into my right foot! _he thought, lukewarm tears of pain and uncharacteristic anger streaming slowly down his face, causing his reddened, scraped chin to burn sensationally – he was glad that his visor had not been damaged in any way, but…how insulting. _My shirt…my pants...in ribbons! My face, my extremely delicate skin…scratched and scraped! My dignity…cast aside like an old gum wrapper!_

No. That had been enough. Eddward was angry now…very, _very _angry. _Uncharacteristically_ angry. Panting furiously with furrowed eyebrows and unforgiving eyes, Edd quickly turned his head and looked to his left. The horde of beetles that had threatened him before had started to advance slowly toward him…they must have decided that he was in prime condition to feast upon. This, however, was not what had caught his attention…no, it was the alpha beetle's pathetic form that had drawn his unforgiving, thoroughly ticked-off eyes. Its horns had once again found themselves lodged inside the chambers' walls….its legs were scurrying and scratching against the tattered floor as the rest of its body strained and tugged furiously, trying to dislodge itself.

And right there, out in the wide open air, just screaming "_bulls-eye, bulls-eye!_" was that perfectly helpless and exposed red sac of life on its revolting rump.

"Insult my hard-earned dignity and intellect, will you?!" cried Edd as he quickly clenched his right hand, located inside of his arm cannon, into a fist, and then quickly released it into an outstretched hand once again, within the timeframe of a half-second. "Ooooh…I'll show you, you ravenous arthropod!"

And just as he had finished outstretching his hand from its fisted position, a blinding, silver light literally exploded from his arm cannon with tremendous recoil, sending Edd tumbling backward several feet and onto his butt. The blast had traveled very quickly…not as quickly as a normal energy shot, but fast enough to reach the exposed alpha beetle before it even had time to react. The rabid insect screeched out in pain as Edd's freshly-launched missile exploded violently on its posterior, causing its vulnerable sac to violently explode in a grotesque mess of dark-green and blood-red goop.

The beast flailed and squirmed violently, its legs swinging and scratching the floor madly while its horns remained locked inside the wall. The organic ooze squirted, gushed, and bubbled out, creating a horrifyingly grotesque mess of biological gunk all over the Chozo's respectable, ancient floorwork. The beetle's wails, though heavily muffled, still managed to fill the air as continued to spasm violently about.

_Eeeeaark!_ _Eeeeaarkk! Eaaarrrk!_

...And then silence. The insect's blood had ceased flowing, and its body became limp, its head still lodged within the damaged stone wall. The alpha beetle's family, letting out frightened, primal screams, hurriedly tunneled through the thoroughly tattered and broken floor - whatever instinctive thoughts were running through their diminutive, primal minds…they knew not to mess with this Earthling, as fragile as he had initially seemed.

Eddward, though…really _was_ a fragile Earthling – he knew it better than anyone. To be honest, he believed it even more than his ever-condescending friend Eddy did. His legs…were shaking with fright at what he had done. At this point, Edd was scared of himself…horribly frightened at his behavior. Just trying to stay alive on this forsaken planet was _madness_ – look at what it was doing to him!

_Wh-what am I doing?_ thought Edd, gripping the top of his beanie with self-fright, sweating profusely at the sight of the destruction to the originally well-preserved and timeless Chozo chamber he and the alpha beetle had caused in their struggle for survival, as well as the sight of the newly-slain creature itself. He…_Edd_ had done that! _Have you sunken so low, Eddward? Where on Earth has your rationality disappeared to? You should be ashamed of yourself…you have already taken full responsibility for locating your beloved companions…Ed and Eddy… Why, at this rate…at this rate…!_

"After all, Eddy…that could have been _us_."

He could not handle it. He was in the wrong scenario, on the wrong planet, and at the wrong time...and he was not fit to do _anything_ about it. He was just a kid, after all. Fate had dealt him such a cruel hand this day, and as that horribly haunting phrase, the one he had uttered so thoughtlessly, yet so truthfully, on the _Orpheon_, repeated itself over and over in his mind, Eddward's knees struck the gritty, stone floor of the Chozo sanctum…and he cried hysterically.

* * *

"'_…A wellspring of pure water that flows throughout our civilization.'_ If my analysis of otherworldly historical data isn't completely off the mark, I'd say that this line suggests that there is a water source residing somewhere within these Chozo-constructed ruins."

Some time had passed since the alpha beetle scenario – about fifteen minutes, to be exact. At this point, he honestly had no idea which side of his mind to listen to at this point; one part of him told him to give up on his hopeless search altogether, while the other forced the immense pressures of responsibility on him. These two thoughts were constantly being tossed around in his mind, and his rationality was the one stuck in the middle, the one trying to catch the ball in this mental monkey-in-the-middle game.

Eventually he had decided that interpreting the mysterious lore he had discovered upon first entering the ruins would suffice as a distraction for a while, at least long enough to allow him to regain his composure. Additionally, he had eventually convinced himself to scope out yet another ruined building out on the plaza – since the one he was now traversing was just on the other side of the sandy road, next to that oddly-developed tree, why not? The hallway he was in at the moment was more or less the same as the one he had found in the first building: about thirty feet long and painstakingly carved of stone, brick, and dirt.

He had to admit, though…these Chozo, as mysterious in nature as they were, were mind-bogglingly interesting.

"And from what I can discern," he continued as he passed through the hallway, his mind becoming increasingly focused on the ancient text, still artificially translated into contemporary English. "The source of this water originates from the '_highest point of the city'_. Now, I can understand what this means…quite clearly, to be exact.

"But what baffles me," he mused on. "Is the conclusory sentence: '_we have seen the fountain…pouring darkness instead of water_.' What in the _world _could this phrase be referring to? _Sewage_, mayhap? Ugh, what a positively disgusting revelation! Well, I suppose I could…"

A sudden change in humidity had caused Edd to stop in his tracks and draw his sight away from the alien text splayed on his screen (the poor words had been dissected at least seven times by the analytical boy genius). Tapping the upper-left rim of his visor, Edd removed the text from the screen temporarily and looked onward, his eyes adjusting to the sudden decrease in illumination.

"Silly me, I had become so caught up in my studies," he remarked, letting out a small, self-chiding chortle. "That I failed to notice that I had entered a…_oh, Lord, what is that horrid stench?!_"

Edd immediately pinched his nostrils and furrowed his forehead in disgust as the most raunchy, foul, and organic stench swept over him. His eyes instantly began to tear up, and even his visor became slightly foggy…this was just an _awful_ stench – it smelled as if the Chozo had, at some point in ancient times, left a rotting compost heap composed of moldy pickles, blackened bananas, and raw sewage somewhere in this room and allowed it to become miraculously sentient and escape into the ventilation system. Oh _man_, he felt like passing out right where he was.

Ironically, though, the smell made the room seem all the more deceptively impressive. Two raised portions of the room, comprised of stone and brick paneling, flanked the northern and southern ends (Eddward being on the latter side), while, from each platform, two ramps descended, one on each side, and created small bridges that ran along the walls of the gymnasium-sized chamber, more or less connecting the two from across a large, yet seemingly shallow pool of water. On the northern platform, however, there existed some sort of…fountain, it looked like. Edd could not really discern exactly what it was, but despite the fact that the horrid stench was constantly urging him to leave, his curiosity eventually got the better of him.

"My, my," muttered Edd while shaking his head and holding his nose in utter disgust as he steadily edged his way down the uncomfortably narrow right ramp and cautiously made his way across the makeshift bridge to the northern side of the room. "Never, in _all my years_, have I witness such grand architectural design…but simultaneously, such _poor_ housekeeping! Honestly, I had such high hopes for meeting an advanced, civilized alien race, not a horde of hygienically-oblivious slobs…"

Working his way across the bridge and trying not to sully his clothes by clumsily falling into the seemingly shallow pool of water (though his clothes were already thoroughly tattered at this point), Edd could not help but notice that the rancid stench had now reached an almost completely unbearable level.

_Ugh, what is this rank smell?_ he thought, feeling his stomach churn due to the positively revolting odor. Edd momentarily looked around, but could see nothing along the lines of rotting organisms or vegetation from where he was positioned. _Honestly, at this point, I would be extremely intrigued to learn of the source of…_

He had not noticed up until now that, on the rightmost side of his visor, a vertically-oriented data bar had actually filled to a near-one-hundred-percent level and had gained a complimentary exclamation point alongside it. Edd knew, from his initial studies of this technologically fascinating visor, that this was dubbed the "Environmental Hazard" bar, which would normally alert him to any, well, environmental hazards present within a certain radius of his body. Taking heed of his visor's warnings, and with curious eyes, Edd quizzically looked down and into the water…and even amidst the low illumination present in the strongly humid chamber, he could tell that something was horribly wrong with it.

The water was, for a lack of better words, _green_. However, it was not just the type of green that one would usually expect when looking at a stagnant pond decorated with algae – this water was a dark, sickly hue of forest-green, and appeared to be almost…Edd wanted to say "rotting", but he really had no idea exactly what the liquid was composed of. His visor was clearly indicating that this water was unhealthy by all biological standards, obviously, but to test his hypothesis, Edd lowered his head slightly and took a slight whiff of the stagnant pond…and immediately had to fight off the urge to wretch all over the place.

"_Dear Lord!_" he cried through a blocked nose as he immediately turned away from the revolting water pond and hurriedly made his way across the bridge. "Well, I believe I can safely say that I've learned what the Chozo were referring to in their historical retrospective…this water must be poisonous! _Deathly_ poisonous, I might add"

As Edd walked up the ramp and onto the northern platform, the stench just seemed to worsen, though this was most likely due to the fact that the large, upside-down-bowl-shaped, steel construct that took up most of the platform really _was_ a fountain, and it was currently spewing up copious amounts of the raunchy, poisonous liquid. Disgusting and stomach-turning? Quite frankly, _yes_.

"What on Earth…could have caused such an environmental plague?" muttered Edd through closed nostrils as he stood on the platform and eyed the fountain quizzically while at the same time attempting to remain as far away from it as possible. Scanning it with his visor did nothing to clarify his query, unfortunately – all it did was inform him that the construct was indeed a fountain forged by the Chozo race some years ago. He appropriately sighed – here he was, once again, with more questions than answers. If the Chozo had set out to confuse and challenge his very intellect, this alien race was clearly on the winning side.

"To make matters even _worse_," he contemplated, again practicing his habit of talking to himself as he looked around the chamber, finding nothing but well-carved, yet eroded and worn stone walls, stagnant pools of water, and broken stone pillars that, back in their prime, could have made for a grandiose display of architecture. "I've been unsuccessful in finding any clues relating to Ed and Eddy's whereabouts. Drat…this search has yielded absolutely _no _satisfactory results! This whole escapade is nothing more than a…a…"

The sight of a series of well-carved engravings etched deeply into the painstakingly-crafted wall behind the corrupted fountain had done an _extremely_ superb job of attracting Edd's immediate attention. The fact that, once again, it seemed to be glazed by a mirror-like surface of unidentifiable liquid had only served to confirm his assumptions that he had again been fortunate enough to stumble upon yet _another_ recollection of the Chozo's past…twice in the same day!

"Well, if I am unable answer any of my numerous questions myself," muttered Edd to himself excitedly as he subconsciously prodded at his visor, already scanning the no-doubt archaic text. "Perhaps I can turn to the Chozo themselves!"

His trusty visor had wasted no time in translating the text to perfect English (though there had been a slight pause when it had accidentally rewritten it into illegible...Jovian?). With the anticipation of a young girl reading her secret crush's journal, Edd's eyes quickly scanned the archaic texts left by this mysterious civilization:

_We Chozo are departing now, after so many years in peaceful seclusion here on Tallon IV. When we came, this place was a refuge for our spirits, a civilization built from native materials, bereft of the trappings of our technology. We were linked to the land here, kindred to the plants and animals, far away from the machines we had become so dependent on. And so we leave it now, pristine, a testament to the mortal forms we no longer need. We have drawn the veils of time and space aside, and are withdrawing beyond the illusion. But we will never forget this, the most sacred of our homes. And we will remain ever watchful._

After reading and re-reading the translated words over and over again, Edd temporarily removed the text from his visor's display screen and, inhaling quite deeply, closed his eyes as he tried to imagine the Chozo to the best of his ability. What were their philosophies? Their feelings toward science? To cast aside the technologies of the universe and live in harmony with nature…where did they come from, and why did they depart Tallon IV? How was all of this related to the poison that had infested their ruins, or the coming of hostile creatures such as the infinitely-aggressive beetles?

And why was Tallon IV so devoid of peaceful life? Why did it seem as if this mysterious planet was…dying?

"Just who…_were_ the Chozo?" muttered Edd as he slowly opened his eyes and looked again upon the age-old writing etched upon the grandiose wall, noticing that the mysterious liquid surface that had coated the engravings had now vanished.

Something…strange had happened to Tallon IV…

* * *

_Oh maaaaaaan… This is…not good…_

He had been hiding ever since he had crash-landed – and that was a _long_ time to be hiding, for sure. Obviously, he had no sense of time whatsoever at this point. Who the heck would have cared about something as pointless as _time_ in this situation, anyway? Just staying _alive_ and, ultimately, _unseen_, was far more important to him right now.

At the moment, he had tucked himself away behind a large, pyramid-style stack of metallic, dishwasher-sized crates, trembling in fear as he periodically stuck his head out from the side of his hideout in order to see if he could, at the very least, make a run for it…but no such luck. He could not have made that attempt…not while _they_ were around, at least. Initially, they had not seemed so tough – heck, if had gone up against just one of them, man-to-man, he was sure he could have at least beat it up good.

But there were just so _many_ of them here…probably hundreds and hundreds of them, speaking in illegible tongues that just served to frighten him even more. Whenever one of them had gone near one of his numerous hiding places, he would always quickly make his way to another secluded, predetermined spot…but that was just lady luck working her graceful influence. He knew he could not hide forever – they would most definitely find him and…

Just the _thought_ of what they would possibly do to him immediately sent shivers down his spine. At this point, he was sure that they would be able to locate him by the smell of his own sweat. He could not leave the area, of course, as much as he wanted to – he could only work _inside_ of the complex, unfortunately. Security was so intensely tight around here…he had even seen _force fields_ around the place, just like in those weird science-fiction movies he had seen on television.

_Man, I gotta make a run for it or somethin'! _he thought, his legs quivering as he peeked out behind the boxes. _Where's that useless Double Dee when you need him? He'd probably think up some smart way to get me outta here. When I get my hands on him for making us take those stupid escape pods…I'll..._

Of course, his thoughts were completely interrupted when he suddenly witnessed perhaps the most bizarre and grotesque thing he had ever seen in his relatively short life (aside from Ed's monster-suit rampage around the cul-de-sac, though he had found that to be more funny than frightening). No, this was just plain…weird and disgusting at the same time.

A large group of _them_ had just passed by his ingenious hiding spot and had continued walking down the hallway – he was safe for the moment, at least – toting several dishwasher-sized cages on their shoulders (man, those guys were ridiculously _strong_). These portable prisons, in particular, did not appear to be very well-constructed, so he could at least see what was residing inside of them, but…man, he wished he had not looked in the first place. They were, from what he could tell, creatures about as large as televisions, and that was scary enough, to be sure, but what was even odder was that they appeared to be almost…translucent in appearance. It looked like they had a bunch of...red gunk inside of them, like old, rotting jell-o – in fact, these creatures almost resembled stereotypical jellyfish…except that they seemed to have a set of…_pincers_ at their base instead of tentacles. And _man_, those little things looked as sharp as kitchen knives.

What in the world…_were_ those monstrosities?

"Somebody get me outta here…!" whispered Eddy, a twelve-year-old, ordinary Earthling as he ducked back under his new home, a sturdy stack of crates, and sat down, wishing that he had never, _ever_ gone into that stupid time machine.


	7. The Stagnant Ruins

_**Chapter Seven**_

_**The Stagnant Ruins**_

"Hrmm…yet another collection of…wait…what on Earth…?! '_Burn Dome_?' Could my scan visor possibly be interpreting this correctly? Oh no, that doesn't sound unpleasant at _all_, Mr. Chozo architect…"

Eddward exhaled sharply in exasperation as he calmly pressed his left thumb and pointer finger on his steadily-beating temples, proceeding to rub them softly. How long could he fight off the throbbing headache that had been threatening to grapple with his over-productive brain? He could already feel the uncomfortable, subtly blunt pain stretching into the back of his eyeballs – what an awful, aggravating feeling it was. Was it the fact that he had been constantly interpreting data on his translucent, frameless visor? Was the close proximity of the text to his eyeballs the cause? Or was it perhaps the fact that his allergies had finally found the motivation to unleash their ruthless irritation on his sinuses? The fact that the Chozo had most likely been absent from their home for multiple decades probably meant that they had never found the time to return and _dust_ the place. Edd had finally become aware of the ruins' horrible lack of sanitation…given, they were not as grotesquely murky or humid as the rain-drenched Tallon Overworld or as riddled with Space Pirate corpses, entrails, and gore as the now-defunct _Orpheon_…but it was still a tad shiver-inducing.

"An hour of uneventful excavation, with hardly even a trace of docile animal life, and now I come across a doorway with the words 'Burn Dome' emblazoned upon it!" complained Edd aloud, a thick, sarcastic tone practically dripping from his every word. "Given how 'inviting' these ruins are, and from what I've witnessed, I would be absolutely astonished if the Chozo had ever entertained _any_ house-guests at all!"

Despite his growing cynicism, Edd _had_ found the incentive to venture quite deep into the ruins – their clever, yet admittedly repetitive, blocky architecture had not yet ceased to astound him, though the fact that they were almost completely devoid of any non-floral, _friendly_ sentient life did seem a bit disappointing. Sure, there were unusually large fungi growing from the floors in the more humid chambers, but besides that…he was pretty let-down thus far, as well as completely exhausted.

And now, standing stalwart before the pre-teenager was an age-old, bronze-textured, thoroughly-rusted and dented, seven-foot-tall double-door with the oh-so-inviting words '**BURN DOME' **branded horizontally across its full length (of course, the words were written in Chozo script, only translated into English on Edd's visor, so in reality, it looked as if a giant chicken had scratched its talons against it multiple times). Edd had been silently pondering to himself whether it would be a wise course of action to actually go _through_ the door and see for himself what was on the other side, but his indecisive nature had caused him to reach quite an impasse.

He lowered his hand from his beanie-concealed forehead and eyed the massive door again, exhaling with annoyance. "Well," he sighed, attempting to build up at least _some_ amount of courage. "I won't get any closer to locating my friends if I just sit here and curse these defiled, grounds. After all, I've yet to have my fill of surprises this day!"

Finally reaching a decision, Edd firmly pressed his left palm on one of the doors, expecting it to slide open quite smoothly – to his surprise, however, it remained quite firm, the only outcome being a small sprinkle of dust drifting from the ceiling. Befuddled, Edd attempted to force it open with the side of his right arm, but despite an excessive amount of strained groaning, along with his boots scraping against the stone floor of the hallway, the door still did not budge.

Refusing to call it quits despite his pathetic display of strength (or lack thereof), Edd simply rolled up his sleeves (a pointless mannerism – he was sporting a t-shirt, after all) and put his back carefully against the rusted door, taking care to avoid a sudden outbreak of tetanus. With an even longer array of grunts, groans, and other indescribable, guttural noises, Edd pushed with all of his miniscule might, still not believing that the door could have been _this _resilient.

"Drat!" grunted Edd as he worked diligently against the heavy bronze slabs, his feet slowly pushing away from him – at this point, his very boots had begun to dig into the cracks between the stone tiles, pushing up a small pile of ancient dirt. "Curse my underdeveloped muscle mass!" He continued to force his back as hard as he could against the portal, but it was fruitless – this was one sturdy slab of bronze.

With another pained yell, the heavily-perspiring Edd put his full force into a fifth and decisive push, hoping that the powers that be would actually allow him to pass through it like a ghost. However, he had not expected that this effort would actually cause the door to swing open without warning, which it did, and he awkwardly stumbled into the unknown chamber behind it, albeit backwards. Letting out a chain of surprised shouts, he tripped on his own ankles after about three feet of stumbling and fell down, his rear colliding with the rock-hard, ancient flooring. Inhaling sharply through clenched teeth at the sudden posterior pummeling, Edd immediately began to rub his behind, hoping to cease the pain.

"Erg…there will be no more of _that_, thank you!" seethed Edd sarcastically, his voice slowly rising in annoyance while taking a quick survey of his surroundings – not to his surprise, he had once again found himself in a relatively…uninspiring chamber. Completely devoid of appliances or strange artifacts of yore, the room was, however, shaped quite strangely, somewhat akin to the upper half of a large sphere. With a domed ceiling rising about ten feet from the floor at its highest point, the circular chamber (about the size of, again, an average garage) showed obvious signs of wear, as exemplified by the cracked, dull-orange stone walls and dust-caked, matching stone tiling.

"Intriguing…ugh, but this floor would never pass the white-glove test!" muttered Edd as he slowly stood up from his sitting position, ignoring the dullness of the dome but taking note of its rather unusual shape. "Well, it does appear to be a _dome_…but I cannot help but wonder what exactly the word _burn_ entai-"

The sight of the massive collection of organic structures drooping down from the center of the ceiling had been just enough to stay his words and, additionally, scare him completely out of his mind.

What Edd was sure he was seeing was…well, indescribable, to say the least. In this case, the most effective metaphor that could have been used to describe the objects was "upside-down science-fair-project volcanoes" growing out of the ceiling. With a blunt, weathered shade of slate at their tips and an ugly hue of Halloween-orange at their bases, they were quite a hideous sight, but what was even more strange was the fact that they were so numerous…probably around thirty torso-sized, similarly-shaped structures hanging from the center of the room's ceiling, hanging about two feet down...their repulsiveness was indescribable, but Edd was not one to let "disgust" get in the way of "discover".

"What in the world…for a second I thought I was seeing the dated candy corn hanging from the underside of Ed's mattress…" remarked a curious Edd, prodding at the scan modules on his visor in hopes of gaining some information on these unusual organic stalactites. "But…I've never seen such peculiar specimens! Perhaps if I could just reach…"

Edd's ears suddenly perked up…yes, he could have sworn he had just heard something. It was a sort of…well, he could not quite place his finger on it – it more or less resembled something like a bubbling sound…the sound of an iron pot over an open flame, filled with boiling water and ramen noodles. However, along with the curious noise came a smell – such an awful stench, to be sure! In response, Edd impulsively moved his left hand in order to cover up his nose and deflect the odor, but before he could he could reach his face, he averted his gaze to the floor…more specifically, at the very center of the room, which he was standing about a foot away from.

"_Oh my!_" he cried in surprise, almost jumping out of his very clothes as he realized that, at the center of the floor was what appeared to be a frisbee-shaped hole about two feet in diameter. Edd did not know exactly how deep it might have been, and frankly, he did not care in the slightest, for he was too preoccupied with the fact that it was practically full to the brim with that same rancid water that he had discovered earlier on in his excavation…it was a well full of the stuff, it seemed.

"Th-the poisonous water?" stammered Edd, his fear-meter rising quite hastily. "_Here_, of all places? This certainly proves my hypothesis that the stagnancy has indeed spread itself throughout the ruins, but…why such a small-"

Edd was quite used to being interrupted, though ninety percent of the time, it was one of his friends that would accomplish the task – Eddy, in particular, had practically made it a hobby of his to do so. However, this interruption was just a tad different than usual: during the midst of his ramblings, a large, unidentifiable object had immediately burst out from the small, toxin-filled well with a terrible, metal-borne crash. Edd simply responded by shouting in horror and staggering back, falling on his rump for what was probably the eight time that day.

"_Good Lord!_" he cried, his limbs beginning to enter tremble-mode, utterly shaken by the tremendous scare he had just received. "What in heaven's name _is_ that monstrosity?!"

At first he could not identify the thin, six-foot-tall object that had suddenly risen from the hole – at first it appeared to be something akin to a normal human being standing completely stiff and still in military-pose, though he could not exactly be sure due to the fact that it was completely covered in the puke-green, rich, toxic goop. However, as the gunk slowly trickled and oozed off of its surface, Edd could eventually get a good view of what in the world had just risen before him - one thing was for sure: it was most definitely _not_ a human.

In fact, there was absolutely no chance that it could have been a living being at all. The man-sized monstrosity, once revealed, seemed to be but a simple, tin-constructed totem of obscure design. From what Edd could see, its base, comprised of a large, thick, rusted pipe, extended about a foot and a half out of the well. From there extended a series of thinner rod-like projections bunched together quite neatly, which extended upward about four feet. At the very top of the fragile collection of hollow pipes rested what could have been best described as a slate-colored cylinder of sorts…one could have easily mistaken it for an upside-down bucket all the same, nothing more or less.

Visually, though its height was indeed intimidating, the totem was not a very pretty sight to behold – rather, it was simply a poorly-constructed, six-foot stack of vertically-oriented pipes with a bucket-shaped 'head' at its top...a tragic take on the conventional snowman, one might say. An armless pipe-man, perhaps, but that was all.

Edd slowly rose to his feet once again (becoming _quite_ annoyed at having to constantly do so after every sudden phenomenon), though found it quite difficult to do so due to his agony-stricken backside. "I was startled for a moment!" sighed Edd in relief as he adjusted his visor. Being an avid perfectionist, just one slight imbalance of his visual apparatus would have set him off immediately. "This looks to be merely a poorly-designed totem…or _stack_, I should say…of rusted pipes and rods. Why, even a simple kindergartener could have constructed this industrial disaster!"

He scoffed and crossed his arms, his right eyebrow raised quite high, feeling like an aggravated teacher critiquing the bad behavior of a schoolyard bully. "Honestly, I am _appalled_ at the Chozo for failing to piece together such a horrible excuse for-"

_Vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!_

Edd still had not exhibited any patience for being interrupted mid-sentence, but what was occurring had attracted his attention quite raptly - at that very instant, two of the numerous pipes that made up the four-foot middle section, or the "torso", of the frail metal totem shifted and rotated outwards, now parallel to the totem itself, giving the strange impression that the horrible piece of technology had suddenly acquired thin, rusted, outstretched arms…it eerily resembled a thin, frail cross, to say the least.

Once the extending ceased, one of the robot's narrow pipes (or "arms") spun around clockwise and pointed itself directly at Edd's sweat-speckled visage, while the other arm pointed in the exact opposite direction (toward the wall opposite of Edd), keeping with it's cross-like formation. Even at about two feet away, the dark barrel of the pipe just seemed to forebode bad news, and caused Edd's sweat ducts to shift into overdrive.

Regardless, Edd simply squinted his ever-curious eyes, startled at this astonishing new development – had the mangled machine just shown signs of sentience? Taking an even closer look, he suddenly noticed that the seemingly ordinary opening at the end of the machine's pipe-arm was quite unusual. In fact, though it appeared to be simply an everyday iron pipe, it caused a chilling shiver to slowly inch its way down his spine…he felt as if he were staring down the barrel of a rifle.

…And that was when he finally realized it.

"_Lord Almighty!_" shrieked Edd as he desperately dove to his immediate left as quickly as he possibly could, just in time to deftly dodge the blazing torrent of fire that had just gushed out of the machine's extended pipe-arm. Instantly the entire chamber had illuminated with a vermillion glow as both pipe-arms shot out a continuous stream of flames, thoroughly charring the age-old, stone-crafted ruin walls.

"Oh dear…a _flamethrower?!_" cried a frightened Edd as he scrambled as clumsily as he could to his feet, attempting to shake off his newly-arisen fear, obviously to no avail. "Well, I now realize the sense in labeling this chamber a '_burn dome_!'"

To make matters even worse than they seemed, the machine had also decided to demonstrate that it was not just a simple flamethrower. As if it had detected his every movement with perfect precision, the drone slowly rotated its two flame-throwing pipe-arms, its rusty joints creaking aggravatingly as it, once again, fixed one of its ends directly at Edd's face.

A second torrent of smoldering flames immediately burst from the pipe-arm, and Edd quickly stumbled off to the right and proceeded to up his pace into an all-out run for his life. However, the flame-spewing pipe continued to display its intelligence by rotating itself in the same direction, its deadly jet-stream practically tickling the remnants of the boy's battle-torn, tropical-orange shirt.

_The machine is detecting my every motion…scrutinizing my every action!_ thought Edd amidst absolute panic, trying as hard as he could to keep up his pace – at this point, he definitely felt the urge to avoid being the next freshly-charred dish on the intergalactic menu. _Surely it must have some sort of technological motion-detector system within its mainframe…but just look at its design! How could a frail statue of metal and piping boast such incredible artificial intelligence?!_

Amidst the continuous _whoosh-whoosh_ of the roaring flames at his very back, Edd had distinctively heard a mechanical _whirr-clack_ noise emanating directly from the stationary robot's body. As he averted his gaze toward it, he noticed that something had slowly risen out of the top bucket-like part of it (it's "head", one might say)…it appeared to be yet another large, metallic cylinder – relatively boring, just like the rest of the totem. However, the fact that this "incinerator drone", as Edd would come to call it, had just grown a makeshift "head" was not important at the moment – the sudden presence of a baseball-sized, flashing red iris staring at him from the center of the cylinder was they boy's primary concern.

"Ah-ha! I _am _being tracked!" muttered Edd, his mind quick at work despite the fact that his body was struggling just to keep ahead of the searing heat that was practically stalking his back. Somehow the bright-crimson "eye" on the head of the incinerator drone reminded him of something…yes, _something_…but what? Where had he seen something that _red_? When had he _witnessed_ such an ominous, taunting _glow_ before…?

_The alpha beetle!_ thought Edd, his mind a newly-illuminated light-bulb as he came to the sudden realization that red, flashing objects, from what he had seen, had a tendency to denote a "weak spot".

Taking care not to lose his pacing, yet making sure that he aptly took proper aim, Edd swiftly lifted his arm cannon and attempted to lock onto the taunting, red iris. Squinting his visor-shielded eyes, as well as bracing for the loud, concussive noise that was sure to follow, he fired a single missile at his "target". Immediately the bright, silvery blast flew from the cannon's barrel, the recoil travelling up his arm nearly sending him careening straight into the wall.

To his surprise and delight, though, despite his rather unsteady aim, his projectile had successfully struck his assailant's weak spot…and dead-on, as well!

"Yes! A phenomenal shot, Eddward!" cried Edd in self-praise as the drone's arms, though still spouting a continual stream of flames, ceased to rotate counter-clockwise and suddenly became completely stationary. Edd simply stayed where he was, opting to take a momentary breather as he observed the incinerator drone's reaction to being shot in the eye by a concussive blast. Its central body had appropriately begun to twitch and whirr, sparks ceaselessly sprinkling out of its explosion-singed head and body. "Well, that will teach the Chozo to take more care when constructing defensive mechanica-"

Edd's words had immediately begun to trail off into garbled gibberish, his mouth simply hanging open loosely like a windblown screen door – such was his reaction when he had witnessed the incinerator drone's next action. The construct, while Edd had been musing to himself, had pointed one of its pipe-arms directly toward the ground, spewing fire straight onto the stone floor – no harm done there, fortunately, for it was doubtful that the Chozo would care whether their archaic tiling was singed or not.

However, since its arms seemed to be connected at an axis located within the robot's body, the other one was now pointing _straight upward_, shooting a torrent of flames _directly_ onto the organic, slate-and-orange cylinders on the ceiling…the grotesque, sagging objects that resembled old candy corn that Edd had noticed before! Not surprisingly, the cylinders were immediately consumed in an aura of fire, and Edd had _just_ been about to mutter something along the lines of "oh dear", as he often did – however, what had happened then had left him far too panicked to even conceive such an idea…

The organic, rotting candy-corn imposters drooping disgustingly from the ceiling…were _hives_.

…And from the incinerated hives flew insectoid horrors far more grotesque than mankind had ever encountered…massive arthropods the size of a grown man's skull! Flaunting their soot-black, disgustingly bony exoskeletons and their fluttering wings, they burst forth from their habitat in droves, dozens of them fluttering away hyperactively from the all-consuming flames. One had to admit that they were just so disgustingly _large_ that one could see practically every miniscule _detail_ on their insectoid bodies: their orbed, emerald, bulging eyes, their limp, scrawny legs flapping back and forth uselessly in the air, their translucent and oh-so vein-wired, turquoise-tinted wings…and their stingers.

Oh man, those _stingers_… longer than a newly-sharpened pencil and as deadly-looking as a kitchen knife in the hands of a madman they were! To make matters worse, before even ten seconds had passed after the hives even caught flame, each and every oversized hornet had turned their attention toward the little, wide-eyed human pre-teenager trembling in terror within their chamber.

Edd loved insects, he truly did…with the exception of those particularly nasty sorts that displayed this kind of ruthless intent…the intent on _murdering_ him.

"_Oh good Lord Almighty!_" shrieked poor Edd as he sharply turned around and sprinted as fast as he could in the direction opposite from the killer army of monster-sized wasps. "First oversized beetles and now…_this_?! I've heard of the errors of disturbing a bee's nest, but _this is ridiculous!_" Oh, he could hear the low-frequency _buzz-buzz_ of their flapping wings coming from directly behind him – the sound resembled that of a fast-traveling motorcycle – that is, a motorcycle chasing him down a highway…an infinitely-looping highway with no escape!

Desperation fueling every fiber of his being, Edd quickly attempted to escape through the heavy, bronzed door that he had first entered the burn dome through – no _way_ was he going to stick around and defend himself against an army of enraged killer insects with wings the size of bread loaves! Unlike his encounter with the beetles, there was actually a fair chance of escape this time around. Additionally, the bronze door was only about ten feet away from where he was…the room was, more or less, shaped like a clock, and he was running in clockwise fashion around it – it he was at the "one" point, the door was located at the "three" point.

"_Just a tad further!_" Edd panted as he upped his speed to a whole new, never-before-seen level, his legs becoming quite numb already. Unfortunately though, and by an unfortunate twist of fate, a horizontal torrent of fire immediately arced down from the ceiling and blazed across his vision, effectively blocking his escape. The insidious incinerator drone had actually recuperated and succeeded in detecting him once again! What was more, its flame-spewing pipe-arm had begun to slowly revolve counter-clockwise _toward_ him, threatening to singe his flesh at any moment.

Fighting the overwhelming urge to curse under his breath, Edd immediately turned around in order to make a run for it, but as soon as he did so, a swift, bullet-like object quickly zipped past his head, followed by an intense, but horrendously short sizzling sound...the sound of moist, raw bacon _kshhhhhh_-ing against a seething, iron, grease-soaked pan.

The massive wasp had just barely missed his head – instead, it had flown straight past him and into the stream-like torrent of flames. No matter, though…there were still _eleven_ more of the beasts hovering just two feet away from his face.

And that was it – that one, small feeling of hopelessness and anger toward his own characteristic helplessness. That feeling of being outnumbered, outmatched, and outwitted...he had always hated the feeling – he hated it in Peach Creek, and he hated it on Tallon IV. He had reached the breaking point once again.

"_Enough already!_" screamed Edd, immediately covering his visor with his left hand and pointing his arm cannon randomly to his right, not even bothering to take aim. In a state of absolute panic, he hastily fired a violent barrage of missiles in totally random directions, screaming terribly in fright as he did so. The room had become positively abound with deafening, explosive _kawoosh_'s and _kaboom_'s as the bright-silver missiles jettisoned from his arm cannon and collided with who-knows-what and where-the-heck. Edd did not care in the least…the wasps and the incinerator drone had crossed too far over the line for _that_.

But after only ten seconds, even during the short pause between the numerous missile blasts, all had become instantly silent, save for Edd's own instinctive shrieking. Eventually he regained his senses and ceased his primal yelling, thoroughly embarrassed by his outburst. Cautiously, he removed his hand from his visor, though he was still trembling at the idea of looking around at the destruction he had no doubt wrought. When he did, though, he found that could see quite clearly, for his missiles had not produced any smoke or emissions that would cloud his vision – they were entirely energy-based, concussive blasts, as his scan visor had notified him previously.

The burn dome was pocketed with television-sized craters, of course – his spastic lack of aiming had already hinted toward _that._ However, the biggest surprise that had hit him was the fact that all of the wasps had practically vanished, the only remnants being a plethora of translucent wing fragments strewn about on the debris-covered floor. He noticed that the flames had finally ceased, as well, and in curiosity he looked toward the center of the room - as he had predicted, the incinerator drone had completely disappeared, completely obliterated by his random barrage of missiles and explosions.

Panting furiously, Edd immediately clutched his chest and attempted to regain his composure, something that he had preferred to keep under control. "Goodness…I'm not…not sure how Ed and Eddy can undergo such…int-intense bouts of violent behavior," he stammered as he momentarily lifted the front end of his black beanie and wiped his hidden brow of sweat. "Though perhaps I'm ill-suited for this kind of work, it's clear that I'm at least...at least capable of defending myself quite adequately!"

However, as Edd had taken a close view of the remnants of the burn dome, he had noticed that the room still contained one small, mysterious artifact. In the very center of the room, hovering just a few feet above the toxic well that the incinerator drone had risen out of, was a sphere, rotating slowly and bobbing up and down, suspended in the air.

As Edd walked over to its location, he had noticed that it was indeed a sphere of some sort – a mechanical one, it seemed. Hovering mysteriously above the small pool of poison, the object had a faded, ugly-orange hue to it and was no bigger than an ordinary backyard softball. Additionally, through a series of small, rectangular openings on its surface, a soft, vermillion glow shone through, giving the artifact quite a mysterious appearance. Sure, it looked radioactive, but after spending years and years with his friend Ed (who was admittedly "hygiene phobic"), Edd had become quite accustomed to such strange sights.

"How very curious…" mumbled Edd as he slowly bent over in order to get a closer look at the mysterious, floating orb, noticing that it had only appeared after the incinerator drone had been vanquished. "What could this be? Was it perhaps a segment of that mundane, robotic flamethrower…or…" In the midst of his thoughts, he lightly tapped the orb with a curious finger so as to examine its seemingly smooth, reflective texture – he could even see his own reflection in its sleek, lustrous surface.

At the instant that his finger even made contact with the orb, however, the artifact had immediately dissipated into thin air with a _woop_-ing sound, right before his very eyes! Taken aback, Edd let out a short, surprised cry as he quickly staggered backwards. "Wha…what in the world just happened?!" he cried out in shock, looking around the room, hoping to identify the location of the ball that had just vanished into _thin air_. His search was cut short when he suddenly felt a strange sensation in his own left hand – frightened, Edd quickly lifted his hand and began to witness what was happening.

A fluorescent glow of sapphire light had begun to completely enshroud his entire hand, from the base of his wrist to the very ends of his fingertips. With the ever-increasing intensity of the glow came a high-timbre sound that continued to rise in volume and pitch, similarly to the sound of a science-fictional "laser" being "charged up". Edd wished he could somehow hold his hand steady in order to prevent it from falling off, as it had eventually begun to tremble spastically after about ten seconds of radioactive glowing, but alas, his right hand was inside his arm cannon!

"_Good Lord, what is this phenomenon?! Make it stop!_" yelled Edd in fright as he closed his eyes tightly, firmly expecting that his hand was about to ignite in a radioactive explosion.

However, after about six full seconds of intense trembling, even more sweating, and nervous whimpering, his eyelids slowly lifted, and he set his vision upon what was sure to be a horribly disfigured left hand.

…And what a sudden jolt of surprise! Instead of seeing a lack of fingers or a massive hole where his palm should have been, Edd simply saw that his hand was now encased in a glove, no more and no less…of course, no "less" was the more accurate phrase. Penguin-black in color and matching with the metallic, lustrous space-jump boots he was currently adorning, this leathery hand-sheathe appeared to be lightly padded on both the back and palm portions, as well as on both sides of each finger. The interior felt quite comfortable and soft, and though it was not as soothingly fluffy as the inside of the winter ski-gloves his mother had made him, it was still a welcome addition. Finally, resting in the palm of the noir glove was a simple-looking, standout circular pad of sky-blue hue that was no larger than the face of a watch. Any hardcore biker, perhaps even local jock and all-around-showoff Kevin, would have given it a ten-out-of-ten for both comfort _and_ sleek style…far out, dude.

"…This was…not what I was expecting in the least!" sighed Edd in relief, overjoyed to see that his hand was still in existence and was unharmed in any way…at least, he had hoped so. Obviously, he was extremely intrigued by the mysterious design of this brand-new, state of the art…glove-whatchamacallit, but was still forgetting the fact that he was in possession of a _scan visor_. "If my hypothesis is correct, then the floating orb left behind by that insipid drone had, just moments ago, transferred its…energy, if that's what it was…into the form of this glove, which was then transferred onto _my_ hand…fascinating!"

Stricken with awe, Edd began to curl his fingers in and out in order to break in his new hand-wear while he stared at it curiously, finally getting the feeling that venturing into the burn dome may have been worthwhile after all.

"I must say that, though I'm not exactly sure of the nature of this accessory, it _is_ quite a good fit!" At that point, he had completely contracted his hand into a fist, at which point he heard a tiny sound…a small _ker-click_ emanating from his palm – his middle finger must have accidentally pressed that small, curious pad in the middle of his palm. Not thinking much of it, he simply outstretched his hand again and looked at his palm so as to examine that one small pad.

However, his examination was obstructed by the sudden presence of a bloated, softball-sized ball of energy resting in his palm. This glove truly _was_ a fascinating apparatus, and upon observation, Edd determined that it truly _appeared_ to be an orb, though not composed of anything that resembled a solid – in fact, it looked to be completely comprised of static energy…a "ball of electricity", one would say. In fact, a stereotypical static sound was continually emanating from it, the noise slowly increasing in volume as the sphere began to pulsate at an alarming rate. The object had only generated itself about two seconds ago, as a matter of fact…and given the fact that it seemed to be practically _ticking_…it could have easily been a…

"_Bomb?!_" shouted Edd in surprise as he instinctively chucked the static orb away from him and toward the bronze door that served as the entrance of the burn dome. As he had suspected, as soon as the sphere had so much as touched the ground, it exploded in radiant sapphire light – it was not a fiery blast, though, and actually resembled what appeared to be an "electric" explosion, but it was at least quite loud and had a conventional _boom_ sound to it. The concussive blast had also proved its incredible destructive nature – the explosion had immediately blown down the amazingly solid burn dome door, straight off of its hinges!

Though Edd marveled at the fact that the orb had such destructive potential, he was even more impressed with the glove that he was now adorning. "What on Earth…" he muttered curiously as he examined the pad in his palm, his scan visor already relaying data pertaining to the accessory to him in text form. "Yes, it appears my assumption was correct…this 'glove' seems to be able to generate energy-based…_bombs…_whenever I tap the illuminated pad in my palm…how incredibly dangerous, but…such ingenious design!"

That taught Edd to never underestimate the technological brilliance of the Chozo race.

And as he continued to marvel at the glove and its astonishing capabilities, he came to the realization that the burn dome had suddenly begun to reek of a putrid stench…something along the lines of a mixture of charred grass, oil, and freshly-caught salmon. Scrunching his face in absolute disgust, he forced himself to take his attention off of the glove.

"Right, well, I had best continue my search for Ed and Eddy…this horrid stench is becoming all too familiar…and it's beginning to give me a headache…" he scoffed as he carefully stepped over the scattered remnants of the dead wasps and, ultimately, left the burn dome, all too eager to locate his two planet-fallen companions.

And that was why he was there, right?

* * *

They say that caves can be the darkest and most mysterious places on Earth, thousands and thousands of which have never seen the presence of man. Murky, humid, and downright eerie, these cavernous lairs are, more often than not, wellsprings of biodiversity. Fish without eyes, myriads of bats, insects that use the nerve endings on their legs to see…the world's most incredibly bizarre creatures can be found in caves – they are homes to hundreds of living beings, coexisting together in a world of their own amidst the still darkness and the _drip-drip_ of water trickling off of the age-old stalactites.

The bleak, frigid caverns of Tallon IV's tundra regions, though, were nearly devoid of these biological blessings. Tinted with hues of jet-blacks, whites, and navy blues, they were homes almost completely unsuitable for all but the most resilient of residents, and thus were as silent as could be.

This particular cavern was no different from the rest of the expansive network beneath the snow-blessed surface: with a ceiling reaching as high as fifty feet, and with stalagmites drooping downward like earth-borne icicles, the faintest falling of a pebble would have caused a fairly noticeable echo. Perhaps long ago, this chamber would have been the home of the more thick-skinned mammals, or perhaps some other unnamable, alien cave-dwellers. Now there was naught but the eternal, frigid mist blanketing the surface of the ice-glazed pond located in the very center of this gymnasium-sized, snow-glazed cave, surrounded by a series of high, snow-packed ledges near the cave's ceiling – the only sounds came from the tinkling of the solitary icicles clinking together, growing ever more frigid and still with each passing day…

All solitude must come to an end at some point – such is the way of the universe, some would say – and on that particular day, July 10th of the interstellar year 2005, an unusual phenomenon had occurred.

With gargantuan force, the most unbelievably alien-looking object imaginable crashed straight through the northern cavern wall with a deafening _kaboosh_. Sending massive shards of rock residue sailing in all possible directions and causing the entire cave as a whole to tremble, the pale-white, boulder-sized, egg-shaped object careened through the air and crashed straight into the southern cave wall, embedding itself in the snow-covered rock, no doubt creating quite the miniature impact crater. The gargantuan, car-sized stalagmites fixed on the ceiling had threatened to fall due to the earth-jarring crashes that had just taken place, yet held fast - numerous icicles, though, had instantly snapped from their foundations when the smoke-emitting object had first crashed through the wall, and the rest rained down when it collided into the opposite wall.

There was hardly any light coming from the massive hole in the wall through which the alien object had sailed - there was nothing but simple caverns leading further that way. All that was present was a single, solitary figure, standing stalwart with a young, humanoid build. Slowly and curiously it stepped out onto the high ledge at the northern end of the cave, its jet-black, metallic boots sinking about half a foot in the fresh and never-before-trodden snow that had been carpeting the cave's grounds for decades, ever since the ceiling had closed up. As the strange, destruction-bringing creature began to tilt its head from side to side and survey its surroundings, it let out a strange, guttural grunt, the likes of which these caverns had never seen before, not even when they had been inhabited with the hardy creatures of yore:

"Whoaaa... Santa's _basement_!"

Ed had escaped the icy cave-prison he had crash-landed in and had just stepped out into the mysterious, frigid caverns of Tallon IV, having just hurled his egg-shaped escape pod through the cave wall.

* * *

_Kaboom!_

The dishwasher-sized, cracked sandstone barrier instantly broke into hundreds of tiny fragments and dispersed into the air, having been completely demolished by one of Edd's new concussive bomb-orbs, freshly generated from his new glove-like module, which he had now taken to calling the "bomb glove" – short, simple, and quite easy to remember.

"I certainly hope that such concussive bursts of energy don't cause the collapse of these ruins!" muttered Edd as the sandy remains of the blockade swept down the stone-tiled ramp and toward his travel-worn space-jump boots. "Honestly…"

Edd's search of the ruins for his friends had proven to be quite fruitless thus far, and to his dismay, the burn dome had actually proved to be a dead end. To make matters even worse, all of the other buildings located in the Chozo Ruins were either too derelict to risk entering or far too difficult to access due to high altitude. Thus, on the way back from the burn dome and toward the ruins' main plaza, he had come across this exceptionally massive chamber - granted, he had been inside it on his way to the dome, but had never really thought much of it. The exceptionally large, ceiling-less room had featured a rather massive tree, decorated with dying autumn-leaves (no doubt due to the corruption that the ruins' poisonous water supply had wrought) that seemed to infinitely extend upward and into the sky About ten minutes ago, he had realized that about half of the way to the top of the room was a small ledge, and surmising that this outcropping could have been a pathway leading deeper into the ruins had given him enough incentive to climb the tree, albeit with great difficulty.

Luckily, the path that he had been hoping to find was now before him, presented in the form of a small tunnel in the wall that would require some ducking-down to traverse. It had originally been blocked by a thick block of sandstone, but that was now dispersed in hundreds of particles around the chamber.

Edd would have already been inside the tunnel if it had not been for the small glimmer that had caught his watchful eyes. Puzzled, he looked upward at the large, rising wall above the tunnel, for he had seen the glint in his upper peripheral view – and lo and behold, there on the wall rested yet another familiar-looking Chozo engraving, which was typically, yet still mysteriously, glossed over by a thin layer of translucent liquid.

"Intriguing…" muttered the ever-questioning Edd, his fingers working quickly at his visor while eyeing the illegible alien carvings of old. "I suppose now would be an opportune time to learn more about the Chozo – I can only handle so much environmental destruction at once, you know!"

Within seconds, a fresh slew of radioactive-green sentences had emblazoned themselves on Edd's visor, spelling out a well-crafted message in English-speak:

_We have returned to Tallon IV, borne here against our will by a great cataclysm from the reaches of space. A meteor came, casting a dark shadow of debris over the land with the violence of its impact. Though we perceived this from beyond space and time, it was but a curiosity: a brief flare in the universe. But the meteor brought with it corruption. A Great Poison burst forth into the land, clawing at life with such violence that we were ripped from our peaceful state and find ourselves wandering as shadows of the mortal forms we left behind, searching for why we are here._

"A 'Great Poison'?" questioned Edd to himself, his eyes still wide with wonder at this enlightening new tidbit of information. "A great cataclysm indeed… From what I can discern, it appears that the Chozo had temporarily returned to this planet, only to witness a great…meteor strike? Or perhaps this means that they were 'knocked out' of their spiritual state and brought back to reality…" His eyes suddenly lit up at a sudden revelation, but immediately dismissed it as improbable. "No, no, there is little possibility that the earthquake that struck the planet only a few hours ago while I was excavating the Tallon Overworld…was caused by _this_ meteor – no, this could have happened _years_ ago!

"But this…Great Poison that the Chozo speak of," he mused, lowering his head in order to squeeze through the relatively short passageway that he had just revealed. "How could the meteor have brought a poisonous influence with it when it struck the planet? To ravage all peaceful life…wait, _that must be it!_ Yes, the…Great Poison, whatever that may entail, must have eradicated most humble life on Tallon IV. This would explain why the only life forms I've seen thus far are hostile." He stepped out of the dust-infested passageway and stood up straight, dusting off his completely ravaged clothing, which was at this point in desperate need of repair – he could even see his skin through the rips in his shirt. "Perhaps the darkness the Chozo had imagined flowing out of their fountain, wherever that was, could have been referring to _this_ poison…"

Though his mind was working overtime trying to decipher the meaning behind yet another cryptic message, his body was almost entirely fatigued – climbing a five-story tree was never his idea of a leisurely activity, after all. Luckily, the ornate, winding pathway that lay before him was much more inviting toward someone of his physical caliber, and he calmly followed it. Though the archaic path, which had most likely never felt the presence of a human being before, snaked left and right, Edd was not deterred, even when stepping over fallen stone bricks and eroded floor tiles. The strange succession of petrified vines scraggling out of the cracked walls that wired themselves against the slowly-crumbling ceiling seemed to be a testament to the deterioration of the city.

"Perhaps if I can reach some sort of vantage point within these ruins," muttered Edd aloud as he stepped over a small pile of brick and dirt in the very center of the path. "I can take a survey of the horizon and perhaps locate something…perhaps even a pillar of smoke, which will be most likely be rising from the escape pods, and from there I can make headway into locating my friends."

Edd had to admit, it was tough work going it alone. In fact, though he preferred solitude, he had never once imagined what it would be like without his two close buddies alongside him. The feeling of loneliness had not yet hit him, though…not with full force, that is.

Edd slowly edged his way around a gargantuan tree trunk that been obstructing about half of the passageway and saw that before him lay two old, slate-colored steps…at least, they _appeared_ to be steps. What was so deterring about them was that they were both quite large, each about the size of a modern automobile, averaging at about five feet tall. If they were indeed _supposed_ to be steps, Edd wondered when he would arrive at the giant's castle at the top of the beanstalk.

Nevertheless, Edd simply sighed and slumped his shoulders. "I suppose all impasses can't be avoided…this is becoming monotonous." Tensing up his feeble muscles and gritting his teeth, he jumped upward as high as he could, grabbing the very edge of the first step with his left hand – the fact that his right hand was inside his arm cannon was not going to assist him in this exercise, for sure. Next, he attempted to lift himself up and onto the giant slab, but to no avail – his biceps were literally nonexistent.

Instead, the persistent young genius slowly began to swing his left leg from side to side in a pendulum-like manner, eventually gaining enough speed to lift it onto the edge of the step. Shaking with strain, Edd then pulled himself up onto the massive stone slab of a step and immediately broke out into a fit of panting, crouching down on his knees in exhaustion and desperately craving a hot, hygienic shower. Not pausing to speak to himself, though, he repeated the process with the next step (an endeavor which took about two minutes to complete – a new record for him), and found himself facing yet another unrealistically massive door reminiscent of the one guarding the burn dome – however, this one was colored with a remarkably dull shade of emerald, though it still had an array of scribbles splayed across it…Chozo text, no doubt.

"I say, who in their right mind would ever construct such unnecessarily humongous steps? Giants, I would suppose, but unless the Chozo were truly that gargantuan…come now!" complained the ever-critiquing Edd, prodding the left side of his visor in an attempt to decipher the alien code splayed across the door, only to find that, once the translating process was complete, the text amounted to one English word:

'**SUNCHAMBER.'**

Given the fact that it sounded far more inviting than the horribly repugnant 'burn dome', Edd decided not to offer his criticism on the name and promptly pitted his shoulder against the door, and with enough force he slowly wedged it open far enough for him to collapse face-first into the chamber that lay behind it.

Rising to his knees (and muttering an array of complaints and intelligent curses), Edd could not help but raise his eyebrows in wonder as he took in an eyeful of what the Chozo had apparently dubbed the 'Sunchamber'.

And it was an appropriately-named room, to be sure - there happened to be no ceiling present whatsoever. Fortunately for Edd, this area may have even been the highest geographical point of the Chozo Ruins. The cloud-smeared, jade-and-turquoise alien sky stretched out in sea-like fashion above him in all of its sun-bathed splendor. There were walls present in the Sunchamber, of course, though they were constructed in a large, circular pattern, making Edd feel as if he were in a ceiling-less version of the Pantheon, albeit with a floor consisting of firmly packed soil instead of elegant marble tile. Easily as massive as the central area of the cul-de-sac, the Sunchamber was an impressive sight to behold, but boasted one unusual characteristic in particular – located at its very center was a relatively large pool of what Edd immediately assumed to be the venomous liquid that was plaguing the ruins, and out of the poison grew what appeared to be a house-sized, pink-hued flower, its five gargantuan, tongue-like, heavy petals budded up together, convulsing and swaying about mysteriously in the refreshing winds.

Many would have missed it, but Edd saw the connection right off the bat.

"By Jove, this is it," he stammered, his voice slowly rising in volume with excitement due to his discovery. "Yes, the green, oversaturated nature of the flower's stem, its partial submersion in volatile liquid, and its continual exposure to sunlight, not to mention its position at the apex of these grounds… _This_ must be the source of the poison running through the Chozo Ruins!"

He immediately stood up with excitement, his knees aching like nothing else while his brain quickly sprang to life once again. "But how to stem the toxin?" he queried, prodding his chin as he tossed various solutions about in his genius mind. "Surely it will prove difficult enough to separate the plant's symbiotic relationship to the ruins' water source, given its massive size…" He offered a small glance toward the black glove that was encasing his left hand and considered a few possibilities. "Perhaps…_this_ module can be of assista-"

_Krooooosh!_ The dry, shriveled noise of rustling leaves filled Edd's ears immediately, forcing his train of thought to completely derail. What in the world _was _this noise...the sound of millions of dead leaves rustling all at once was what it had sounded like. Several glances about the Sunchamber revealed nothing as Edd's panic began to rise…until he had looked toward the very center of the chamber and found the cause.

Quickly, and with a scream of terror, Edd rolled as athletically as he could about six feet to his immediate right, just barely dodging the wild stream of gargantuan plants quickly sprouting, in a straight line, from the flower in the center of the room to where he had been standing – worse still, the line of six-foot-tall flora that had just instantly appeared where he was standing…was completely enshrouded in a sickly, lime-tinted mist and a vomitous odor – the poison in gaseous form, no doubt! These plants…they must have been venomous…deadly to the touch!

"Wh-what just happened?! What's going on?!" cried Edd, sweat dripping down from his temples to his cheeks as he averted his terrified gaze from the line of newly-sprouted killer plants to the giant, bulbous flower in the center of the Sunchamber.

_Cha-Koonk!_ A hollow, metallic sound rang just a few feet directly above Edd. Quickly looking upward, Edd saw that there was a rather large object hanging from the very top of the Sunchamber's wall – a mirror, no doubt. Due to the presence of wind within the area, it had been shifted enough so that it tilted downward and became locked in place, facing the gargantuan, convulsing flower, and it immediately began to reflect sunlight onto it. Exposed to the heavily-concentrated rays, the plant began to violently writhe and flail about with increasing intensity, until it finally unfurled, its gigantic, pink petals rolling outward like a carpet and dipping down into the stagnant pool of poison.

…And out from the center of the flower came a beast so hideously grotesque…

Edd screamed out in horror, staggering backwards in utter disbelief, as he set his petrified eyes on the terrifying insect slowly snaking its way out of the flower and rising three stories into the sky. The monster, a horrible mantis/plant hybrid at best, was unlike anything Edd had ever imagined, even in his wildest nightmares. Sporting an ugly, forest-green exoskeleton and a soft, wafer-hued underside, a countless collection of pseudo-legs sprouted out of its sides and traveled all the way up to the base of its arms, giving it the haunting appearance of a writhing, behemoth centipede.

And those arms…small, bony, and pathetic-looking mantis arms they were… but with school-bus-sized, metallic, razor-honed _scythes_ growing outward at its elbows, reflecting sunlight and flailing about in every direction as the fifty-foot-tall beast, easily dwarfing the likes of the Parasite Queen on the _Orpheon_, simply stared at Edd…stared at his insignificant form…

…Stared at him with its bulbous, over-bloated, praying-mantis head…its slimy, silvery, saliva-dripping mandibles…its two massive, leaf-like antennae growing out of its forehead and flapping in the strong winds…and those two grotesque, glossy, crimson orbs…those two gargantuan bulbs consisting of millions and millions of _eyes_…

Eddward truly was the master of stirring the bee's nest.


	8. Flaahgra

_**Chapter Eight**_

_**Flaahgra**_

A crescent sun…

Unnatural, to be sure, even on a bizarre world such as Tallon IV. Not even the obscure native inhabitants had ever witnessed such a startling phenomenon. In fact, if one were to tread through the sloshy, half-bog forests of the Tallon Overworld or the glacial, mountainous regions to the far, far north and quiz any sentient being one came across about this strange happening, it would most likely shrug its alien shoulders and mutter the Talloric equivalent of "I dunno, beats me" – that is, if one were lucky enough to actually _find_ a docile creature on this ragged rock. Then again, the planet was quite devoid of any sort of satellite, so it had never once experienced its own crescent moon – pretty understandable, of course.

But a _crescent sun_… Trying to comprehend it was a mind-boggling endeavor.

Well, there was _one_ individual who could have offered a clue as to what might have been causing such a stellar spectacle, and ironically, that person was quite the newcomer on Tallon IV – a "tourist", one might say.

Oh, if one were to just _see _the view that he had the "pleasure" of having…any sane person would definitely flee in absolute fright. Oh yes, pretty fast – they'd be out of there in seconds _flat_. Though a crescent sun was a strangely beautiful – if haunting – sight to behold, it was doubtful that any being with enough common sense would take the chance of staying _there_.

But all this otherworldly tourist could do was stare…stare in awe at the horrifying reality behind the glorious sight that had graced the archaic ruins: at the tip of that gigantic arthropod's scraggly, bony arm was a gargantuan, mirror-plated crescent blade raised high into the sky of Tallon IV - high enough to blot out half of the sun.

_Swooooooooosh…_

And with one swift, life-reaping motion of the blade, the sun shone brightly once again.

* * *

"Not good, not good, not good, _not good!_"

What a stroke of unexplainable _luck_ - Eddward had actually been able to dash to the right at the very moment the massive, disgusting specimen had brought down its reaper's arm – the grossly oversized blade dug deep into the squishy, poison-soaked earth, having missed the boy by a just a few measly feet.

"I don't like the looks of this!" shrieked Edd aloud as his nerve-ends began to jolt and scream in terror, goosebumps manifesting all over his body. For the past few minutes, he had been attempting, with an ever-quivering hand, to access the scanning module that came equipped with his high-tech facial visor, but with no luck – the insect-plant hybrid that had arisen from the massive, bloated, pinkish flower that presided within the Chozo ruins' Sunchamber only a few moments ago had found cause to attempt to skewer him on its bus-sized razor-arms.

"Alright now…_calm…down, _Eddward…let's be rational! If I could just calmly get a hold of myself and… _Oh dear Lord!"_

With a grossly high-frequency, blood-curdling screech that would no doubt drive the neighborhood dogs mad, the beast quickly followed through with a lightning-quick downward vertical stroke with its other scythe-arm – fortunately, Edd's instinctively keen impulses had already ordered his calves to launch him as far as they could to the left. Though he tried his very best to deny it, his body was already becoming quite accustomed to intergalactic…"battle", as Ed would say. His unfortunate encounters with the alpha beetle and the Incinerator Drone had proven to be adequate practice indeed.

But _man_, he had never had to move this fast in his entire life! If he had missed a beat or did not react to that gigantic insect's death-drenched, fear-inducing blades…well, he could not even bring himself to _imagine_ the horrific results!

"I-if this is…karma's measly attempt…at…at turning the _tables_… after my experiments on insects…" cried Edd desperately in short, panting bursts as he clumsily rose from his knees and repeatedly tapped the upper-left side of his visor with trembling hands, sincerely hoping that the scanning function would activate more swiftly if he did so. "Then fate has a _cruel sense of humor!_"

Good. No, _great!_ After a grueling three seconds of rapid-fire tapping, he had finally accessed the scanning module and, what was more, had gotten a good lock-on on the insidious, multi-story creature. Fortunately for him, the irritated insectoid had both of its oversized blades buried deep within the ground, having missed its Earthling assailant with each stroke, leaving it prone to a good scanning.

Perhaps fate's stand-up act was not drawing the proverbial crowd so well, after all.

However, the barbarously bloated bug began to jerk its arms upward with violent force, attempting to pry and wriggle its arms out of the ground, and Edd had to remain still enough in order to keep a reasonable lock-on. To be honest, handing balloon-headed Jonny 2x4 a skill-saw and asking him to make friends with it would have been an absolute cakewalk compared to _that_.

"Oh please, please, please, _please_ _scan faster!_" panted Edd hysterically as he began to slowly back away from the Flaahgra, his well-brushed-and-flossed teeth chattering at high-frequency as his visor repeatedly displayed the simple text "scanning…"

"Scanning…" it read in electric-green, digital font.

Scanning…

_Still scanning, you impatient Earthling. How about I go just a liiiiitle slower, just to spite ya?_

Edd did not have time for these arduous games – he needed to identify the creature and, more importantly, learn how to at least ward it off! He began hopping up and down nervously in place, his eyes widening and sweat drenching his forehead as his visor took absolutely _forever_ to upload the information he needed. For-e-ver! "Yes! Almost there…!"

Almost there – but when did it ever actually _get_ there in time? Just before the notice on Edd's visor read "100", the titanic insect had finally dislodged its two arms from the ground, causing the entirety of the Sunchamber to tremble as it did. Without wasting any time, it immediately thrust its huge, grotesque head right toward the Earth-borne boy…and vomited a tire-sized, guacamole-like ball of bile directly at Edd's shock-stricken face.

As expected, Edd's reaction was quite jarred, to say the least – the attack had taken him by surprise so much that all he could manage to do was tilt his head about five inches to the right…just barely enough to dodge the ball of waste, but that did not stop a few globs of acidic liquid from splattering directly onto his tattered orange shirt.

"_I need data, stat!_" screamed Edd as loudly as he could, hoping that otherworldly forces would intervene and grant him the miracle that he so desperately needed – and as soon as he did, a grotesquely large array of text splattered itself onto his visor. Edd's heart immediately shot up to his throat, and, being the incredibly fast reader that he was, he promptly scoured through as much information as he could within the next three seconds, hoping to find at least a morsel of assistance within the words:

_Morphology: Flaahgra._

_This mutant plant is the source of toxic water in the ruins. Flaahgra's growth cycle has been radically_

_accelerated. As a result, it requires near-constant exposure to solar energy to remain active. This exposure has made Flaahgra's outer shell thick and durable. Concentrated weapon fire can daze it for short periods, but its lower root system is unprotected and vulnerable. Exploit this flaw when possible._

_'_When possible.' Funny.

Yet another vertical underhand scythe-swipe prompted Edd to dart clumsily to the left again (to be able to absentmindedly dodge such a perilous attack was quite the commendable effort, actually, and worthy of praise), but he kept his thoughts on the data that was so helpfully splayed across his visor. "'_Near-constant exposure to solar energy…_'" Taking quick heed, Edd's eyes instantly darted upward toward the alien sky, sweat slowly trickling down the side of his face as he desperately attempted to ignore the gargantuan mantis that was taking up about seventy-percent of his vision. "Drat, the sun is shining! Curse this impeccable weather…"

A soft, muted rumbling that seemed to originate deep within the ground had diverted Edd's attention downward, interrupting his study – the beast's influence was far-reaching, to be sure!

_It's that insatiable toxic grass again!_ thought Edd, juggling questions and theories in his mind as well as on his tongue as he ran as fast as his legs could carry him, moving clockwise around the Sunchamber as line after line of scraggly, sickly weeds shot out from beneath the ground like bullets, spewing toxic fumes from their stems as they sprouted from the rancid earth.

"Even with this amount of sunlight, an implausible arthropod such as this would require more _concentrated_ exposure in order to sustain itself!" rambled Edd aloud, trying to keep his very lungs from bursting from working overtime. He yelped out in fright as the beast swiftly reared its hideous head and stared at him, moving in what could be described as snake-like fashion. Edd noticed the venomous bile seeping down from its carnivorously white-fanged mandibles, deluging onto the poison-soaked dirt – Edd's daily shower regiment would _never_ be able to compensate for stains of _that _caliber.

"Think, Eddward…_think_!"

Instead of simply lashing out as it had so many times before, the beast's serpentine body had begun to sway mysteriously, almost ethereally in the wind, as if trying to hypnotize its prey…emulating the hunting patterns of a deadly cobra. Besides this, the Flaahgra did absolutely nothing but keep its bulbous red eyes fixated on Edd and Edd alone – the staring contest was occasionally interrupted by the occasional _ffft-ffft_ twitching of its lightning-fast mandibles or the massive leaf-like antennae sprouting from the top of its head. When would it strike? How fast would it go about doing so? For all Edd knew, the Flaahgra could have pounced at any moment with immediate success, as his own reflexes were beginning to burn out with overuse. He bit his lower lip nervously, his pores exuding sweat as he too shimmied to and fro, trying to figure out just what was keeping this wretched mantis _alive_ with such an inadequate amount of light.

How could the self-proclaimed pacifist ever hope to pacify something so much _bigger_ than him?

* * *

As the Flaahgra swayed from side to side in its hypnotizing dance, Edd's mind momentarily traversed elsewhere as he attempted to locate an answer to this nigh unsolvable problem. Now, Edd was not one to doze off into daydreams all that often – not during class, and certainly not during a vicious standoff between him and the manifestation of his worst nightmare. However, desperate times always seemed to call for…well, temporarily removing oneself from reality. Knowing that he did not have much time to ponder his options, he flipped through the pages of the gargantuan tome that was his memory, skimming the pages as he read through get-togethers and scams, birthday parties and Rolf's odd celebrations until he came across one interesting section: something that had taken place only a few weeks ago, back at Peach Creek from where he and his friends hailed. The image of the Flaahgra momentarily fading, Edd now envisioned his own room, pristine in its hygienic glory, where he and Eddy had been conversing on a fair summer's afternoon…

"Hey, what's the light for, Double Dee?" Eddy had scoffed as he turned off the tall halogen light located on Edd's personal – _very _personal - desk. "You givin' your plants a tan or what? What does a plant need a tan for, anyway?"

Edd remembered how his friend's typical unawareness and disregard for all things scientific had prompted Eddy to flick off the light that was bathing his latest botanical experiment – heck, he even remembered his characteristically over-the-top reaction toward the horrific act.

"Eddy, _please_!" he had blurted out in frustration, hesitantly walking away from his beloved abacus and toward the desk that displayed his most fabulous flora, situated nicely in hand-crafted ceramic pots of rich suburban soil cultivated in his own backyard. "You're tampering with the scientific process! Please leave all ongoing experiments within my room alone, thank you."

He remembered rolling his eyes in exasperation after Eddy had responded with a simple shrug, apparently dismissing him as "uncool" or even "lame" – it did not make a difference, though, as he had never strived to avoid either stereotype

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Eddy had mumbled, growing increasingly impatient. "What's up with the dated light, though? You should get something manly, like a lava lamp or somethin'…" Upon saying this, Eddy had jumped casually onto Edd's perfectly-made bed and took on a relaxed pose – he knew that Edd would go haywire on him for desecrating his carefully-pressed sheets.

"Eddy, this light is a variable in the experiment, not a decorative appliance," he had resolutely answered, flicking the light back on and bathing his beloved flora in sweet, sweet illumination. "Even you should know that every living organism needs light to survive-"

"So put it on the _windowsill_," interrupted Eddy in a mockingly sarcastic tone, pointing toward Edd's own over-polished window. "So we can go get Ed and crash Kevin's pool party!"

Edd had shaken his head at that remark, he remembered, and answered, "Eddy, this species of plant requires a much more concentrated exposure to light – that is why I'm using the lamp instead of the sun to induce accelerated photosynthesis.

"Actually, if I wanted to, Eddy, I could have used a mirror to reflect the sun's rays _onto_ the plant, and it would have had the same effect…taking care not to burn the plant in the process, of course… Isn't that _exciting?!_"

* * *

_Mirror…reflect the rays…onto the plant…accelerated photosynthesis…_

_How in world could I have forgotten?_

Edd simply ignored the Flaahgra, who was striking down toward him with extended, acid-glazed mandibles, and concentrated on the mental breakthrough that he had just been blessed with – he truly felt like an absolute idiot for not thinking of it sooner. Looking upward with a raised arm cannon, he fired a freshly-charged Power Beam blast at the ornate, pristine mirror positioned about seven feet above him – and with a brilliant flash of vermillion light, it shattered into millions of prism shards, all of which scattered wistfully into the winds.

The Flaahgra simply paused mid-attack, letting out a short, guttural choking sound as venom seeped down from its jowls and onto the ground directly below it. The insect seemed thoroughly shocked…or paralyzed, as if something had just jarred its spinal cord. No, it simply…_collapsed_ into a heap onto the packed dirt, its metallic scythes bathed in the wretched, venomous water at the flower's base, its winding, serpentine body completely unraveled and strewn about on the ground. It was incredibly hard to believe, but it was true: the Flaahgra had just gone from being a vicious predator pouncing toward its mesmerized prey…to becoming a writhing, pathetic mess on the ground.

The ant had toppled the anteater.

And so the widest of smiles grew on Edd's face, revealing his pearly-white, well-kept teeth, including his humorously-gapped front incisors. Despite having thought it through extremely carefully, he simply could not believe he had done it…that he had actually toppled this beast. Why _not_ smile? It was a momentous occasion, after all: Edd's swiftly-working brain had caused this…this gargantuan monstrosity to plummet to the ground, helpless and destroyed, defenseless and paralyzed. _He _did this! He remembered how utterly helpless he had felt when he had come face-to-face with that insidious Parasite Queen back on the _Orpheon…_he knew Eddy had felt helpless, as well. But luck had been on their side, as Ed's crazy instincts had allowed them to turn the tables on the beast and drive it off – he was not about to give himself credit for dealing the finishing blow, of course.

If he could topple the Flaahgra, then nothing could stand in his way - nothing could stop him from finding Ed and Eddy in this wracked, forsaken world. And nothing could stop them from returning to Earth where they belonged.

"I commend your efforts, you vile, insatiable, monstrous mantis!" chuckled Edd, his heart full of delight due to the realization that he was _not_ going to die after all…at the moment. "However, in the battle between scientific ingenuity and senseless violence, it is the mind of man that triumphs the day!" He clearly did not care to realize that his legs were shaking quite terribly – apparently his body was trying to get over the fact that if he had acted a moment later, he could have been on his way down the esophagus of the Flaahgra in small, chewed-up portions.

With a jovial spring in his step regardless of the shock, the triumphant Edd paced around the Sunchamber, trying to soak in as much of his surroundings as possible, but he mostly kept his attention on the oversized flower from which the Flaahgra grew.

"But there must be more to it than simply shutting off the source of light," mused Edd as he slowly circled the gargantuan plant, taking care to stay far away from the stagnant water at its base. "The beast is merely paralyzed at the moment...perhaps if I can exterminate it, as cruel and unusual as it sounds, the source of the poison can be stemmed! But how to go about _doing _it?"

Taking his sweet time looking for the answer, he prodded his visor once again, delving deep within his records and previous scans, eventually coming across a small file labeled with the heading "Flaahgra." Once again the text from his initial hasty scannings popped up into sight, and he skimmed the data over and over again. One line, however, seemed to stand out from the others:

…_its lower root system is unprotected and vulnerable…_

Come to think of it, Edd _had_ seen something quite peculiar at the base of that massive flower. Averting his gaze in that general direction, his eye caught what appeared to be a small makeshift tunnel – it did not look very natural, as it seemed to be constructed with some sort of alloy, though this was most likely the Chozo's doing – stretching from the edge of the pool of vile water into the very base of the flower, deep underground.

"Eureka!" cried Edd, his oh-so perfect observation skills coming in very handy once again. Jovially he trotted toward the chute that most likely led directly to the Flaahgra's tender root system. He bent over and eyed the tunnel's dimensions carefully, taking note of its apparent length, structural integrity, and the diameter of its opening. "Well, it seems that the key to exterminating this arduous arthropod lies directly down this chute. Convenient, I must say! Thank _goodness_ the Chozo were kind enough to design such a foolproof emergency mechanism!"

Of course, there was a small problem, evidenced by a raised eyebrow as he stood up and eyed the hole, still a bit puzzled as to what to do. "But I can't just simply _crawl_ into that small opening – how unsanitary! If I had been wise enough to grab a bar of soap before the time machine went haywire…"

Strangely enough, his uttering of the word _grab_ reminded him of the word _hand_, which in turn caused him to briefly avert his gaze toward his left hand – and lo and behold, it was encased in an oh-so convenient black _glove_ that just so _happened_ to generate sphere-shaped static explosives!

"Ah, _this_ should do the trick!" remarked Edd as he tapped his middle finger against the small, illuminated pad in the palm of the glove, and before he could even blink, a translucent ball of electric wonder simply formed in his hand. Making sure that he would make the most of this opportunity, he closed one of his eyes and stuck out his tongue in typical aiming style – he was never too proficient at bowling, that was for sure. Regardless, Edd simply wound up and rolled the ball of explosive might straight into the chute and watched as the bomb sailed smoothly further and further in until it dropped down into the Flaahgra's root system – its Achilles heel.

"Strrrrike!" cheered Edd, yet another wide smile forming across his face as he stepped back cautiously, so as to avoid any negative repercussions from the blast – how he wished Ed and Eddy had been there to see such a well-aimed shot! Perhaps then they would have thought twice about doubting his bowling skills!

As expected, the blast must have gone off inside the root system, for within moments, the Flaahgra's body immediately stiffened and straightened out toward the sky, its arms flailing madly as a column of fire shot up its carapace and engulfed its entire body – Edd had not been expecting such violent results. Screeching in agony through a veil of tumultuous flame, the insectoid slowly contracted back into the flower, its exoskeleton charred to the point where natural healing was absolutely out of the question. The flower itself was unharmed, of course, but Edd did not doubt that the Flaahgra, at this point, was enjoying its last moments roasting like a turkey on Thanksgiving inside of it.

Though he _did_ hate to see an arthropod perish in such a cruel manner, behemoth-like or not, he could not have been more relieved at his incredible luck. "Well, Eddward, you've done it again!" he sighed, singing his own praises as he wiped the filth from his dirt-ridden shirt – or what was left of it. "Surely once that specimen has finally…_ahem_… perished, the ruins' water supply will return to perfect purity once again. Honestly, first that alpha beetle, then that mechanical mess of an Incinerator Drone, and now the Flaahgra!"

Taking a deep breath of relief, he looked upward at the cloudy alien sky of Tallon IV. "Wait until my friends hear of my arduous trials…I doubt they'll believe that someone such as _I_ had the stamina to preserve such a monumental site!" he mused, the last of the sweat finally dissipating. "And I just feel honored to have done the Chozo this one service…perhaps now I can-"

_Fwooosh!_

Out from the massive flower sprung the hideous beast once more – the Flaahgra, revived and vengeful, rose multiple stories into the air and screeched its death-cry at the human boy! Its fangs dripping with corrosive saliva, its body charred with the remnants of the flames, the rabid insectoid raised its dirt-ridden scythe into the air and swung at Eddward with a death-bringing understroke!

_Swooosh!_

And the Flaahgra completed its finishing stroke...

Edd gawked…gawked in shock at that horrid bladed arm that had just been swung at him with near-perfect accuracy. Why was the beast not deceased? Why had he not seen this coming? Hadn't its root system been completely incinerated? What in the world had just happened?

No…all he could do was gape at this horrid revelation as his body neared the verge of permanent collapse. He saw tiny flickers of tropical orange sweep across his vision and into the winds…remnants of his beloved shirt. Apparently, the Flaahgra had missed…by about an inch, give or take a few centimeters.

But it was close enough to cut the remnants of his second-favorite piece of clothing to ribbons.

"My…my _shirt…_" murmured Edd, his entire body atremble, tears of hopelessness streaming down his dirt-decorated face as he stared helplessly at the Flaahgra, his interstellar, insectoid executioner, his vision dotted by the final fragments of his well-pressed trademark shirt.

At least it didn't get his hat.

* * *

There was no turning back. The vermillion force field had been reactivated behind him, just moments after he had entered the complex. It had definitely been a huge mistake to follow those _things _inside…what in the world had he been _thinking_? He could not retreat to his only safe haven, his hideout behind the crates, or even so much as attempt an escape. He was forced in…with _them_.

Dark, machinery-ridden corridors, choked with steam and exhaust from rusted pipes and slow-moving automatic pistons…and yet it was so unnervingly quiet. He felt as if he was back on the _Orpheon_ again, except this place seemed to be a nightmare version of that wretched vessel. What was worse was that everything around him seemed to be in prime condition – no sparks shooting out of broken cables or wires, no blazing chemical fires, no metallic debris, no monstrous corpses…this meant that everything was going according to plan for _them_.

How could Eddy _not _be scared out of his mind?

"Great, I can't get back out because those stupid alien losers locked me in, so now I'm _stuck_ inside this trash heap!" grumbled Eddy, trying with all his might to put on a tough display (despite the fact that nobody else seemed to be present) in order to boost his own quickly-waning confidence as he shuffled his way through yet another cold, empty corridor. The strong odor of dirt and…something organic…filled his nostrils, causing tears of disgust to blur his vision. "Of all the no-good places I could have wound up, it had to be here! Come _on_, guys, where _are_ ya?"

_Ker-whick!_

The sound of an automatic door opening caused Eddy to nearly jump out of his own skin – what was worse was that _he_ had been the one who had activated it. He clutched his chest tightly with his left hand, trying to steady his racing heart rate and prevent himself from peeing in his pants – but he was completely on edge, his nerves so sensitive that he could practically feel the oxygen molecules around him brush against his skin. Heck, he could even feel the humidity radiating from his yellow shirt, which was damp from the copious amount of steam present in the atmosphere.

Cautiously, Eddy peeked through the open doorway, making absolutely sure that nothing would lurch out and try to devour him…or at the very least, to make sure that _they_ were not hanging around. However, as far as he could tell, the place seemed more-or-less deserted – all that he could see was a long hallway consisting of alloyed floor-paneling and walls composed of well-packed dirt and sediment. Besides that…nothing.

"Okay…coast is clear!" Eddy whispered to himself as he tiptoed into the dank hallway, the sudden increase of humidity causing him to choke for a few seconds – how damp could a place get? He felt as if he had just emerged from a shower…or Ed's junkyard of a room, for that matter. Then again, he decided that it would be best not to complain aloud – even if _they _weren't around, he was not about to take any chances.

After taking a few breaths and regaining his composure, he began to slowly tread down the hallway, putting a special emphasis on the _slowly_ aspect, glancing all about as paranoia practically gave him a grueling back massage…an uncomfortable one, at that. Sweat cascaded down the sides of his face, his three head hairs nearly standing on end with electric fear. "Jeez, you'd expect a place like this to be _crawling_ with those losers…" he muttered through an uncomfortable grin and clenched teeth, hoping that somehow, Ed and Edd would suddenly rush up behind him and tell him, with wide smiles, that they had found a working time machine. He decided to take his mind off of the current situation. "…_Hey!_ Maybe they have a treasury around here or something…I wonder how much alien money will go for-"

_Klunk!_

Eddy's entire body stiffened as he unwittingly let out a sharp yelp of fright. That decisive…_klunking_ sound had come from about ten feet behind him…and it was way too heavy-sounding to have been a falling pipe. Eddy simply gulped – he did not want to have to turn around to see what the heck had just dropped in on him…but he did not want to get viciously devoured from behind, either! With fear-stricken eyes he slowly turned around just enough so that he could see down the hallway from the corner of his eye, expecting to see one of _them_ standing before him with laser rifles or nunchucks or whatever the heck it was that they happened to wield. "H-hello?" he stuttered, his voice barely a whisper as his bladder threatened to burst. "Who's there?!"

Silence. From what Eddy could see, the hallway was completely sound and totally devoid of extraterrestrial monsters…and Kankers. There were no signs of a fallen pipe, either – whatever it was, the source of the sound was nowhere to be found. Whether or not that was a _good_ thing…well, Eddy wasn't about to get worked up over it.

And so Eddy felt all tension leave his body as he was hit with a satisfying wave of relaxation. "Phew! It's like I'm in a lame horror movie or somethin'," he complained sarcastically as he began to turn around after receiving quite the unnecessary shock. "Heh heh…I, uh, must be losing it or something…yeah, that's it. I mean come on, what kinda-"

_Ker-thock!_

A sharp jolt of pain surged through Eddy's entire face as he felt a blunt object strike his right jaw with enough force to send him careening straight down the hallway from whence he came, where he crashed into the dirt wall with earth-shattering force. His body jarred and numbed by both impacts, he simply plopped face-first onto the frigid, lustrous floor of the hallway, his vision blurry as he teetered unstably on the threshold of unconsciousness.

"…_Wuh da heck wah dat?!" _gargled Eddy as he was struck by a sudden wave of nausea, unable to form coherent words as he instantly put his hand to his jaw, attempting to sooth the electric jolts of pain coursing through his face. Oh _man_, his back ached horribly, too – that was one _mother_ of an impact. Feeling the numbness quickly fade from his body, Eddy turned his head just a tad and looked upward at the wall he had just crashed into, and sure enough, his impact had formed a three-inch-deep crater within it. "…_Holy cow…!_"

But that was when he came to quite the horrid realization – whatever had done this to him was probably at the opposite end of the hallway! Feeling sicker still, Eddy quickly averted his gaze toward the end of the hall, hoping that he had been struck by a piece of machinery or something, and not one of _them…_

Well, today was not exactly his lucky day.

"Oh man…!" cried Eddy, his voice slowly transforming into a desperate scream as he gazed at the menacing, seven-foot-tall monster creeping down the hall in his direction, donned in lustrous, night-black armor, its fiery eyes fixated on its stout victim. Eddy could not help but notice the three-foot-long, vermillion, jagged blade attached firmly to the alien's forearm – to be honest, he wished he hadn't noticed it at all.

"_Somebody help me!_"

* * *

The sickles swashed and swirled, cleaving through the breeze. No time to catch his breath – no time to breathe. Deadly flurries of razor-light – the alien sun beheld the primal dance of the behemoth. Clementine tatters strewn at the Earthling's feet, memoirs of happier times. The blades came again…

_Look what it did to my shirt…!_

Edd's eyesight began to blur with exhaustion, moist droplets accumulating at the edges of his visor – probably from his own profuse sweating. The Flaahgra, a flailing, maniacal, scythe-swinging psycho-beast had made the most improbable comeback that Edd had ever witnessed – only moments ago it had been roasting amid flames beneath the petals of its flowery abode, and now Edd felt as if he were doing battle with a gargantuan, malfunctioning blender.

Though emotionally scarred at the death of his beloved shirt, the puzzle-pieces of which had been scattered all across the Sunchamber, Edd hardly had time to shed a tear, for the Flaahgra's rekindled death-rage meant that sweeping, bus-sized scythes and searing spheres of bile were constantly upon him, missing their target every time but only by mere feet. If Edd had learned anything during his Tallon IV ordeal thus far, it was that he was quite the whiz at dodging deadly attacks on a regular basis…but how long could he keep it up?

A lightning-swift scythe-swing downward prompted the heavily-fatigued Edd to dive straight out of the way to his immediate right, his bare chest striking and scraping against the packed dirt-floor of the Sunchamber. He clenched his teeth and inhaled sharply in pain as he realized the horrid scratches he was bound to have if he were to make it out alive from the face-off.

_If only I could destroy those blasted mirrors! _thought Edd, his mind still juggling solutions amid the chaos as he clumsily staggered to his blistered feet, his Space Jump Boots riddled with dirt stains._ Given, firing a simple missile at them would be enough to get the job done, but Flaahgra's swift actions are only making the task more-_

_Swoosh-chink!_ In the blink of an eye, a ridiculously oversized blade appeared only a foot to Edd's left, lodged in the ground after yet another miss – so close, even, that Edd could see his own _reflection_ in its mirror-like sheen. The Flaahgra, it seemed, was becoming increasingly swifter and more precise in its attacks – Edd had not even seen that last strike coming!

However, the failed attack had opened up quite the convenient vantage point, for behind the massive, serpentine body of the Flaahgra, Edd could spy one of the three remaining mirrors stationed just on the other side of the Sunchamber.

_A-ha! An opportunity!_ thought Edd, panting through a small smirk as he tiredly lifted his arm cannon and let fly three consecutive missiles, each headed straight for the mirror with surprising accuracy – he could not risk sending only one out, after all. Luckily enough, Edd's increasingly impressive marksmanship caused the pristine, Chozo-constructed mirror to shatter into uncountable pieces, prism-like shards trickling like rain to the poison-soaked ground – the Flaahgra was helpless to prevent it.

Edd silently praised his own improved reflexes – he had become quite proficient with the arm cannon! Perhaps he could best even Ed in an old-fashioned, western-like quick-draw! Memories of the ol' Canadian Squirt Guns came rushing back…

"_Yes!_ Only two mirrors remai-"

…

…_Ouch..._

…_That hurt…_

_…Can't see straight…_

_…Going to be ill…!_

Edd knew that if a truck would have ever rammed into him at terminal speed, it would have felt a lot like what had just happened. He fully expected nearly every bone in his physically-challenged body to be fractured or shattered beyond all hope of repair. The deplorable beast…the Flaahgra…had used the flat side of one of its bladed arms as a _battering ram_ to swat the vulnerable Edd straight into the Sunchamber wall. But this…this was one _heck_ of a swat…the boy's impact even left a sizeable _crater_ within the already age-worn stone!

His world a-spin, Edd simply fell limply to the ground, his body not responding to the confused and muddled signals that his brain was emitting. Then again, had he not seen this coming? His opponent was a massive, fifty-foot killer mantis, after all. He was lucky the Flaahgra had not made its killing strike right away…what was it waiting for, anyway?

The pain subsided quickly, and a universal numbness instantly crept up through Edd's battered body.

_Okay, Eddward…you're still alive, don't panic, now. You've been through worse back at the cul-de-sac, you know! Nothing that a bandage or two won't fix! Okay now…one…two…!_

It felt horribly strange trying to move – let alone stand up – with a completely numb body. Edd strained with all of his might to simply rise to his knees, fighting off the tingly lack of feeling and hoping that his skeletal structure was still in one piece – and rise he did, the Flaahgra simply eyeing the weak Earthling before him with profound curiosity as he struggled to move from that should-have-been-fatal blow. The blurriness slowly fading from his vision, Edd could see the repulsive digestive acids dripping grotesquely from the Flaahgra's toothy mandibles. It looked as if this little game of cat-and-dog was over as far as it was concerned.

But the monster did _not_ strike right away…no, Edd had time…_ample_ time! Just enough time to act, even! And because of that, his mind went straight to work once again, temporarily casting aside the fact that his body was still _intact_ after that train-wreck of a blow that _should have killed him_.

"Where _are_ the other two mirrors…?" he muttered to himself as he felt his nerves tingle ticklishly - feeling had finally begun to return to his body. His ever-studious eyes darted about frantically as his mind continued to work the overtime shift.

_From what I can discern…_ he mused at lightning-pace, drawing an elaborate (and well-labeled, obviously) overhead diagram of the dome-shaped Sunchamber in his mind. _The four mirrors are placed at four different points of the chamber, with the Flaahgra at its center, forming somewhat of an X-symbol within the circle – one mirror on the Southwest side, one on the Northeast, and so on._ He glanced to his far left and noticed the apparent absence of a few well-crafted mirrors._ The two on the North side have already been shattered thanks to my remarkable ingenuity. So that means…_

Knowing the Flaahgra would pounce at him within seconds, Edd had virtually no time to waste in making his move – he immediately shot up to a standing position and whipped his arm cannon as quickly as he could to his immediate right, tilting it just slightly upward. Without even needing to look at what he was pointing at, he immediately fired a single missile, and, as expected, heard a strangely satisfying _ksssshhhh_ sound, signifying the destruction of one of the Southern mirrors.

The Flaahgra flinched – this Earthling was _good_.

Edd's calculations correct, he immediately whipped his arm cannon around and fired a missile toward the direct opposite side of the room, not even caring to take careful aim at his target, even though he could not even see the mirror from where he was. To the Flaahgra, it looked as if the boy had simply fired toward the opposite wall…heck, it looked as if Edd had missed the shot completely! What was that ludicrous boy's plan, firing at a blank wall when the last mirror was in the _opposite direction_?

Thus came the beast's final strike! With cobra-like reflexes and no hints of mercy in its screeching bird-like cry, the Flaahgra struck down at Eddward with extended mandibles, eager to claim its tender, extraterrestrial prize! Edd _had_ seen the strike coming, but…he had not expected it to be so swift!

To make matters even worse, the Flaahgra, not hesitating in the slightest, immediately clamped its mandibles onto the first thing it could reach on Edd's body…the boy's beloved hat.

"Oh dear…_my hat!_" shrieked Eddward with a half-psychotic tone in his voice, holding onto the sides of his sacred black beanie – perhaps his most cherished possession besides his own brain - for dear life as the Flaahgra yanked him high into the Talloric sky, fifty whole feet above the surface of the Sunchamber! Edd could have handled a few more minutes of constant dodging, yes, but when his _hat _was at stake…

"_Cease! Desist! Refrain! Abstain, you monstrous mantis!" _shrieked Edd as the insatiable bug whipped him about by his black headgear, an extreme wave of nausea creeping up from his stomach as his surroundings whizzed by in ever-changing directions – his world had become a cyclone of blurred scenery. He only hoped that his plan would work before he was completely devoured! "_Wait, wait! You're tearing the fabric!"_

But the violent movements would not stop, but instead they became faster and faster – Edd could tell that the Flaahgra was finally preparing to swallow him whole. He could do nothing but scream for his life as he closed his eyelids tightly, preparing for the long, painful journey down the arthropod's long, winding esophagus!

_Kssssshhhhhh…_

It was as if time had become frozen. The Flaahgra's movements immediately ceased as the final mirror shattered into millions – or perhaps zillions - of prism fragments.

Edd quickly muffled his own terrified cries as he hung limply from the petrified insect's mandibles, clutching onto his precious hat for dear life – with the insectoid as stiff as a stick, it was most likely going to fall down. Swaying to and fro in a daze, the Flaahgra, as it did before, tipped over like a falling tree and collapsed with a jarring crash onto the Sunchamber's dirt-floor, the helpless Edd still locked firmly within its mandibles.

His entire body aquiver, Edd oh-so-carefully pried his beanie from the beast's jowls, hardly believing his own luck as he staggered as quickly as he could to the opening of the beast's vulnerable root system…again. No questions asked – the beast was down for the count, and that was all he needed at the moment.

"I knew the missile's built-in _homing_ mechanism would triumph!" remarked Edd as he stood before the small, tunnel-like opening at the base of the flower. In truth, Edd had not found the need to aim _directly_ at the final mirror – the Flaahgra had been in the way at the time, anyway. What he had done instead was allow his missile to fly freely toward the opposite wall, but since his visor had already identified the reflective objects as the most common targets for his attacks in the past five minutes, it had programmed the missile to fly toward the last mirror on its own – just in the nick of time, too!

With a quick flick of the wrist, Edd generated a static bomb in his hand and rolled it down the long tunnel leading to the Flaahgra's doomed root system, once again making use of his surprising bowling skills. Having done so, he immediately backed away to escape the blast, hoping for the best this time around…

_Oh please, work this time…_

A muffled blast sounded from deep within the ground – to Edd, it sounded as if the bomb he had generated was a dud. However, the Flaahgra's body responded by immediately shooting up high into the sky, as it had done before, although _not_ wrapped in a pillar of flames – rather, it simply seemed to be flailing about erratically as it sunk ever so slowly back into the depths of the flower's bud, the color of its bulbous, crimson eyes darkening into a dull mahogany.

…Was it finally dead?

Edd fully expected the Flaahgra to shoot back up and take a well-aimed swipe at him again, and thus braced himself for such an event and took several steps toward the wall. However, instead of a vengeful intergalactic bug, a fountain of translucent liquid burst forth from the pinkish, garage-sized flower. Totally flabbergasted, Edd could only squint his eyes and observe the unfamiliar fluid trickling down the extended petals. That was when he suddenly realized that this substance was _not_ the venomous liquid that he had been seeing all this time – no, it was pure water!

For perhaps the first time since he had arrived at the ruins after landing in the Tallon Overworld, Edd had laid eyes upon completely nonpoisonous spring water, unadulterated and just like the stuff back home. On and on it flowed, dripping down the leaves of the flower and into the still-stagnant pond in which it was saturated, tiny droplets spraying into the atmosphere and dampening Edd's hat and thoroughly roughed-up skin.

"Well…I'll be…!"

An expression of wonder and all-around bamboozlement formed on Edd's dirt-ridden face as he heard what could have best been described as the "sound of draining", roughly akin to the comical sound of a flushing toilet. With curious eyes he turned his attention to the large pool in the center of the Sunchamber.

"Oh my…" he murmured – surely he was not about to witness what he thought he would! "Is that…yes, it is! The poisonous liquid is being _drained_ from the water source!"

Edd watched the startling development in awe – not only was pure water being produced from this chamber, but the stagnancy was diminishing, shifting, and transforming into fresh, unadulterated H2O once more, as if a huge supply of anti-algae had been dumped into it. Yes…gone was the horrid green hue and the vomit-inducing odor – by all accounts, the Flaahgra was dead, and the water in the ruins had been reverted back to purity!

Edd never once considered himself a plumber, but this was kind of a big deal.

Really, he could have done _anything_ at that point. He could have skipped around in circles, singing songs of joy…he could have gone completely wild in true Ed-fashion, totally dismissing his own character. But he could not, for he was too physically exhausted to the point of fainting – his legs quivered violently, his breath rate had not ceased, and his heart pounded to the point of near-bursting. If his body would ever cool down after these events, he would have left this ordeal with quite the physical resume. Whether this was a good thing or not was kind of arbitrary – Edd _was_ a self-declared pacifist…except in situations such facing off against massive _insects_ like the Flaahgra.

So instead of celebrating rambunctiously, Edd simply allowed himself a small smile of accomplishment, his eyelids drooping half-shut with fatigue as looked upward, shielding his eyes from the unfamiliar sun…the star at the center of this strange, strange solar system. "There we go…" he panted, barely audibly, even in the silent chamber. "Hopefully, the creatures that still inhabit these ruins should be able to enjoy a nice change of pace, at least for the first time in decades…" He knew he had just earned some massive bragging rights, which he would probably unleash on his friends at some point.

"Well, no use staying here any longer," sighed Edd as he began to survey his surroundings, trying to find a way out of the Sunchamber – by all accounts, he considered himself finished with these Chozo ruins. "After all, I must find Ed and Eddy postha… Erm...what in the world is _that_?"

As if he had not already seen enough oddities that day - another unusual sight caught Edd's ever-surveying eyes. About fifteen feet away from his position was a rather large step (akin to the ridiculously oversized ones he had surmounted before in order to access the Sunchamber in the first place), followed by another, which led to an sizeable opening in the Sunchamber wall – most likely forged as a pathway leading back down into the Chozo ruins. Not too unusual, but that was not what had caught Edd's attention; the crimson, hubcap-sized, floating disc embossed with a large, warped version of the letter "Z" was the curiosity this time around.

Really, he was expecting to see levitating buttered toast by the end of the day.

"Honestly, one would think that _one_ floating, inanimate artifact would be enough for one day," critiqued Edd, rolling his eyes as he wearily staggered over to the first large step and gazed upward at the object, which happened to be hovering and rotating simultaneously just above the second step. He gawked with uncertainty at the first massive step and realized that, with his current overbearing fatigue, there was going to be no chance of him surmounting it without a trampoline to assist him – the thing was four feet high.

But then something struck a common-sense-chord in his mind. "Hmm…actually, I never really thought about using…_that_ module."

Well, it did not look as if he was going to be successfully climbing that step anytime soon, so he was going to try the "alternative" instead. Stepping a few feet backwards, Edd readied himself, taking a few calm breaths in order to relax himself a tad - he felt as if he were about to attempt his first cordless bungee jump. If this would not work, then it could have possibly meant a severe face-ache, or perhaps even a broken nose. Nevertheless, when he was ready, he made a full-on sprint toward the step, and when he was about two feet away from colliding into it, he leapt as high as he could into the air… Edd was not the greatest athlete in the world, so he expected to crash straight into the stone step with a sickening _thok_.

But…how magnificently high he soared! It felt as if a huge, ethereal hand had just lifted him up into the air, giving him a sizeable boost – heck, he felt as if he really _had _jumped off of a trampoline! Since when could Edd, or any normal human being, jump _twenty feet _high? Amidst the huge rush of having accomplished such an athletic feat, Edd looked downward toward the ground – lo and behold, the crimson discus hovered above the step directly below him.

"Okay, Eddward…this should work…" whispered Edd as he cautiously clenched his teeth, preparing for the worst, as was characteristic. This was the important part…

No…wait, yes...the module had worked! Instead of falling at the same rate at which he had jumped, Edd was instead floating slowly down toward the ground, roughly at half the speed he would normally fall. It felt as if he were, once again, in space! With two decisive _clank_s, Edd's metal-plated boots touched down softly on the cracked stone that comprised the higher step, the crimson disc floating just three feet before him.

"_Yes! _I _knew_ it!" cried Eddward. "I was _certain _that these Space Jump Boots had a specific function, whereas they actually have two: it appears they allow the wearer to jump to ludicrously high altitudes, far beyond the physical limits of a normal human being, and they _also_ allow the wearer to slowly _hover_ down to the ground! How absolutely magnificent!" Edd just had to pat himself on the back for that one – he had basically discovered that those blasted boots of his granted him the ability to bend gravity to his will. "I only wish I had thought of it sooner…"

But now for that bizarre, rotating disc-thing…colored with a blood-red hue, bordered with sharp silver and a mirror-like "Z" emblazoned on both sides, all Edd could do was scan it with his visor, hoping that it would offer at least _some_ information on it…or at least what the "Z" stood for.

_Scanning…_

…

_Unknown artifact._

"Oh come now…" growled Edd in frustration, wanting desperately to chuck his visor as far as he could into the distance. Obviously, he refrained from doing so and instead let out a large sigh, bracing himself as he steadied his black-gloved left hand, eyeing the ridiculous hovering artifact that slowly spun in place before him – it was a heck of a lot more intimidating than the orange orb that he had encountered back at the Burn Dome, that was for darn sure.

"Well, we all know what curiosity killed…" stammered Edd to himself, a now-characteristic nervous tone in his voice as he took a long, deep breath – for all he knew, it could have very well been his last. With a trembling, outstretched hand, he reached out and closed his eyes as he placed his hand on the crimson disc. He gulped.

And, as expected, it immediately disappeared from his sight, vanishing into thin air without a trace – not even a complimentary brilliant flash of light.

"…Oh dear…w-where did it go this time?" stuttered Edd, his worry rising exponentially as his eyes darted left and right, trying to determine just _where_ that blasted artifact had disappeared to – did every hovering artifact on Tallon IV happen to behave like this? He frantically looked in all directions: up, right, left, straight ahead…and finally downward.

Oh boy. When Eddward looked down at himself…

"W-What on _Earth_ is happening to me?!"

To put it bluntly, his entire body was glowing like a street light at midnight. Not to mention the fact that his feet were not in contact with the ground. Yes - Eddward was levitating six feet above the ground.

"_What's going on?!_" he cried, trying to determine whether his mind was playing tricks on him or if gravity on Tallon IV was just as out of whack as its bizarre life-forms were. "What is this phenomenon? Can't the laws of physics maintain some consistency? _I ask you!_"

To make matters even more uneasy, his body had begun to glow brighter and brighter – he looked over at his scrawny left arm and watched in awe as it became enshrouded in a blinding vermillion light (he momentarily pondered Tallon IV's fascination with that particular color) – the same occurred with his arm cannon, his Space Jump Boots, his legs…and even his torso, where the remnants of a shirt that he had donned just that morning hung in tatters. It felt so incredibly awkward…like a tingling feeling all over his body… He also felt like the sun, half expecting nearby rocks to start orbiting him like planets, or maybe even the asteroid belt…or the Oort cloud. Edd would have chuckled in amusement at the possibility, but the fact that his _entire freakin' body was glowing like a light bulb_ was kind of freaking him out of his mind.

"I hope this doesn't lead to intense sunburn!" cried Edd as he closed his eyes and bit his bottom lip, waiting for this alien phenomenon to end – perhaps touching that artifact had not been the wisest course of action. The orb back at the Burn Dome had granted him the power to generate electrical bombs by means of a black cybernetic glove; the Z-disc at the Sunchamber had turned him into a science fair project!

_Sssshhhhh_…

An audible shimmer echoed off into the corners of the desolate Sunchamber and filled Edd's ears with an equilibrium-destroying pitch – so much so that it nearly knocked him out right then and there. Beyond this, Edd did not notice any differences…except that his body, or rather his attire, seemed a bit…heavier. A lot warmer, too. He once again felt the _clink_ of his Space Jump Boots against the grainy stone steps, and he opened his eyes, realizing that he was again obeying the laws of Tallon IV's gravity and that the horrifying event was finally over.

_What…in the world just happened to me? I really hope that I still retain the anatomy of a human being…_

With a frog in his throat and sweat practically cascading out of every pore in his body, he looked downward at himself and saw with his own eyes the change that had been wrought on him.

And for the first time, Edd was rendered speechless. Completely unable to form words into coherent sentences. He could hardly breathe.

For starters, he still retained the anatomy of a normal, pre-adolescent human child, and for that he was eternally thankful. However, if there was something that had been altered dramatically, it was his attire.

To start off, his Space Jump Boots had been altered cosmetically in that they were no longer blackish in hue, but were instead colored a faded shade of tropical orange and were integrated with what appeared to be (and felt like) semi-metallic, armored pants of a similar color. Even the pants seemed to be partially attached to what appeared to be…wait, could it be?

A replacement for his deceased shirt had been bestowed upon him! Edd now wore a semi-metallic torso-suit of armor, the bottom half of which was roughly the same color as his pants, while the upper half, starting from his diaphragm, was colored a dark shade of red, stretching up to the top of his neck in turtle-neck fashion. His special bomb-generating glove was now also colored a light shade of orange, much like the majority of his new clothing-armor hybrid. Perhaps the most notable aspect about his new clothing, though, may have been the prominent cloak he had found himself donning. With semi-comically long sleeves that nearly concealed even the ends of his fingertips and hid away half of his arm cannon, the crimson cloak flowed down to his shins while a popped-up collar flanked both sides of his neck – eerily enough, it looked almost identical to Ed's trademark jacket, although this version was reddish in color, a tad longer at the tail end, and was a bit, as Eddy would say, "cooler-looking". As an added cosmetic bonus, the entire outfit was glazed over with a lustrous, polished sheen. All in all, Edd could not tell whether this outfit was a new set of clothing, armor, or a mix of both… Alloyed threads, perhaps? He honestly could not tell for the life of him.

But he did feel really strange wearing the outfit, that was for sure.

And so Edd instantly turned to the trusty counsel of his visor, his fingers tapping away at its edges as he directed the scanning-crosshair to his own body – and it was not long before the answers to his unspoken questions were splayed out before him in digital text-form.

"Well, _that _was quite the unnerving phenomenon!" sighed Edd, still in relative shock after what had just occurred. "Anyway, according to the data collected by my visor, it appears that this rather bombastic outfit is - oh, how convenient - designed for physical protection!" For that, Edd was eternally thankful – finally, the only thing standing between him and the dangers of Tallon IV's environment was not limited to a trendy shirt and a small pair of flimsy purple shorts. "Additionally, the coat that comes complete with the outfit has a function that regulates temperature levels according to environmental specifications…"

Edd smirked at that – if that was correct, he could have traveled to Pluto and would not have been affected by the extremely cold temperature; his threads would have kept his body temperature stable. He could have likewise survived on Mercury or Venus, unaffected by the overwhelming heat present on either planet. Definitely a must-have for any aspiring "astrotonaut", as Eddy would say!

"Designed by the Chozo…really…" chuckled Edd with a smirk, shaking his head in awe at the ingenious technological ability of this mysterious alien race – finally, it seemed as if he had found some competition in the field of scientific advancements. "Only _they_ could have come up with this ridiculously-designed outfit…this 'Varia Suit'…"

_Varia Suit_… It had quite a nice ring to it.

Granted, he felt a tad ridiculous in his new, otherworldly guise – Ed would most likely be stricken with awe once Edd met up with him, and would probably bellow something along the lines of "Double Dee has become a Space Warrior!" Edd smiled at the prospect. He couldn't wait to prove to his friends that his clothes were, for once, "cooler" than theirs… Not that he cared in the least about what he wore, oh no!

"Come to think of it," puzzled Edd, gawking curiously at the dark, dusty path before him that seemed to lead out of the Sunchamber. "Ed and Eddy are probably waiting for me. I'd best get a move on if we're to be back home in Peach Creek before sundown!" He thought about the horrors of letting Eddy grow impatient, as well…now _that_ was a terrifying thought!

Of course, Edd allowed himself a momentary glance at the Sunchamber before he trotted down the path that led back into the Chozo ruins. The pristine water that flowed through the entirety of the site was to become an eternal testament to his bravery in the face of uncertainty…and, perhaps unknown to him, a monument to a major turning point in his journey, or maybe even his life. Even if nobody had been around to congratulate him on a job well done, Edd, for the first time since he arrived on Tallon IV, finally felt at ease.

* * *

"_Yodel! Yoooooooo-del! Potato salaaaaad! _Ah ha ha ha…"

Clearly Ed did not have a firm grasp on the fundamentals of yodeling – his random interjections of "yodel", "sandwich", and "café au lait" made him sound much like a broken, hand-me-down, Scandinavian yodel-fest record. Perhaps it would have been wise of him to learn the basics from local European Rolf before his accidental trip into deep space. But who could blame him? Overlooking this vast chamber of blackened rocks, trickling snowflakes, and drooping, ancient stalactites which he had burst into after hurling his poor escape pod through the wall, he was not about to pass up the opportunity. It was the least he could do to entertain himself while his friends were…well, away.

After a few more minutes of Alpine hooting and hollering, Ed's demeanor quickly shifted to one of resolute firmness, his eyes squinted as he took a quick survey of his surroundings (despite the fact that he had been in this particular cave for the past ten minutes). He had gone into "Ed mode", as Edd had once described it.

"The marooned Space Outlaw takes heed of his surroundings, for who knows what evil creatures from the netherworld may be lurking around_ every corner_…?" narrated Ed dramatically in third-person as his Space Jump Boots shuffled warily in the foot-high snow that blanketed the top of the cliff, which presided about twelve feet above the icy lake at the bottom of the auditorium-sized cavern – he noticed that at the other end of the cavern, there was another outcropping at roughly the same altitude as the one he was standing on, but there was no way he could have reached it with just a simple jump. Not even Ed was that amazing. Instead, he took a few steps forward in order to get a better look at the lake below. "Following his fellow outlaw Double Dee's orders, the fearless warrior tippy-toes into uncharted enemy territory, his trusty ca… _Whoa-ho!_"

And with his third step, Ed plummeted downward, straight off of the outcropping – he had become so transfixed with his own narrative that he had accidentally stepped into thin air! Thankfully, the fall was short enough to be non-lethal, and the pre-teenager landed just shy of the frozen lake, instead plopping, with a dull (but strangely satisfying) _foomph_, into a thick, wet dune of fluffy snow, which immediately swallowed him whole.

"Ed must adjust himself," mumbled the lovable oaf with a hearty chuckle, poking his head out of the frigid mound and glancing at his surroundings again through a droplet-trickled visor. "Whoa… No abominable snow monsters here!" Finally deciding it was time to get a move-on and return to his Outlaw duties, Ed attempted to break out of the snow-pile…but to no avail. Gritting his teeth and letting out a monstrous roar, he tried again and again to break free from his frozen prison, but his entire body was rendered immobile by the weight of the snow. "Oh no! _The snow is devouring me_!"

However, that was when something had hit him – a rare moment indeed, for Ed was hardly _ever_ hit with anything that wasn't thrown at him by his bratty sister Sarah. "Oh, wait, I just thunk!"

Thus Ed broke out his secret, forbidden, invincible, demolishing, and all-around devastating weapon of truth – his formidable, Jawbreaker-devouring tongue of truth! Dyed a light shade of azure from his days of Jawbreaker-sucking, his tongue easily conquered the puny snow, the powdery flakes melting on contact as he swept over multiple layers of the stuff. Within seconds, the mound was gone, and Ed sheathed his trusty tongue, solemnly vowing to use it again during more candy-filled days.

"Your snow is no match for Ed: Defender of Zorbon!" cried the triumphant Ed-boy to nobody in particular, thrusting his trusty arm cannon high into the air and assuming a rather victorious pose – he had just conquered, much to his excitement, a pile of _snow_.

However, as he stood there, basking in his triumph, he felt something a bit odd…the sudden feeling that he was not alone within the cave. Of course, he was _never_ alone, for his moldy cheese companion Sheldon was always faithfully tucked away in his jacket pocket, but _this_ was just the weirdest sensation…

_Grrr-rack…_

Ed's heart instantly sank into his stomach as he heard that oh-so-familiar guttural noise come from the cliff located at the other end of the room. He immediately looked upward toward that particular outcropping, hoping to find the source of that noise before it had the chance to disappear…

"Do not move from that spot, rancid mutant invader!" bellowed Ed as he aimed his arm cannon at the semi-humanoid silhouette perched at the cliff's edge with lightning-quick reflexes, firing four decisive Power Beam blasts at his target without a moment's hesitation. Unfortunately, his shots had just barely missed his target, and in response, the mysterious silhouette disappeared out of sight before he could even blink – it must have retreated deeper into the caverns!

"Hold it right there, alien perpetrator!" shouted Ed threateningly, his distinctly deep voice echoing off of the ice-glazed walls of the cave as his eyes widened with the prospect of interstellar glitz. "I, Ed, will challenge you and your evil legions of Hades! _Release the wax, ear person_!"

With a vengeful rage seething in his heart and a fervent fire burning in his soul, Ed practically skated across the frozen lake before him and grabbed a firm hold of the rocky cliff-side with his left hand, his right hand unable to do so, what with it being encased in his trust interstellar weapon. With Ed-mode at full-throttle, the determined suburban boy began to climb courageously up the side of the cliff in hot pursuit of this mysterious, inhuman figure, his surging adrenaline pumping and his overactive, boundless imagination fueling him all the way up.

* * *

_The world of living things feels strange to us, we who have existed so long on the edges of time and space. It is clear now that we Chozo can never return to our dimension, not while the Great Poison reaches ever further into the planet. It is so powerful, this creeping evil, that our wills are crumbling and our minds beginning to fail. And so, before it is too late, we now make our last stand. We have begun to build a temple to contain this darkness: at its heart we will place a Cipher, a mystical lock powered by an Artifact and filled with as much power as we Chozo can harness in our ethereal states. Even when we are done, it may be too late._

"…So to stem the poison brought by the meteor, they stemmed the source by building a temple? How very strange…" mused Edd, resting against the cracked, vine-enlaced stone wall as he read through the digital text displayed on his visor. Fifteen feet before him rested an elevator mechanism nearly identical to the one that he had found in the Tallon Overworld some time ago. With the Flaahgra exterminated and the poison in the ruins purged, he was just about ready to leave the ancient Chozo site to continue his search for his companions, but since he had come across two decorative panels containing Chozo lore on his way from the Sunchamber, he could not resist skimming through them a few times.

"I don't know how a _building_ could possibly contain this 'poison', unless it were located very near the impact crater formed by the meteor itself," thought Edd aloud, trying to form his thoughts into a diagram in his mind – he could not even imagine what the temple may have _looked_ like, given the Chozo's penchant for ludicrous design. "And this…'artifact'… Surely they would have hid it away for safekeeping, as it is most likely the key to the crater itself… But where _is_ this 'temple'?" Still a bit puzzled, he turned to the second Chozo lore that he had stumbled upon, this one dated some time before the previous one:

_Our sanctuary grows by the day. We Chozo know much of technology, but we have chosen to leave it behind on this journey. Our home here on Tallon IV will be a place of simplicity: structures hewn from the stone, bridges woven with branches, hallways caressed by pure waters. We build around the ancient and noble trees, drawing from their strength and given them our own in return. All that is wild will flow around us here: our race will be just one more group of creatures in the knit of nature. It is our hope that such a state will bring with it greater wisdom, a greater understanding of the nature of the universe. Once our city here is complete, we will peer inward and discover the truth._

Eddward sighed heavily – he was not about to find suitable hints concerning this mysterious 'temple' or its corresponding 'artifact' anytime soon with data such as this. "This must have been written a long time before the meteor struck the planet…" he muttered, sneaking in a grin as he thought of the happier times that Tallon IV must have been blessed with in its past – this lore _was_ a good read, he had to admit. "So this planet was a sort of getaway for the Chozo…or perhaps it was a way of starting over, casting aside technology in order to become one with nature. Of course, that was way before this catastrophic mess began…"

Edd pondered the concept for a moment, feeling himself enter sort of a Zen-like philosophical state. "I wonder if mankind would be better off without the burden of technology…if we, too, searched for our purpose in nature?"

But the scientist in him would not even allow him to consider it – he quickly shook his head and moved the translated lore to the databanks within his visor. "Urgh…what are you _saying_, Eddward? Get a hold of yourself!" He let out a sigh of fatigue (perhaps his fifteenth that day, if he had been counting) as he strode toward the massive, rusted steel lid that was the elevator, pausing momentarily before he boarded it. Adjacent to the elevator rested a rectangular totem that stood about four feet high, a holographic orange circle projecting from its "head." Edd instinctively prodded the hologram with his left hand, and an array of text immediately typed itself onto his visor:

_Access to Magmoor Caverns granted. Please step onto the elevator._

…Wait, _where_? Edd was naturally taken aback by the rather preposterous name of his destination. "'Magmoor', eh?" he puzzled as he now pondered the prospect of actually boarding the elevator – who in their right mind would ever venture to a region referred to as "Magmoor Caverns"? "That's quite the treacherous name, if I do say so myself…"

Despite his trivial concerns, Edd knew that he really had no say in the matter – he remembered the vow he had made to himself a while back, in which he promised to find his friends and return home safely before the day was out. Shrugging his shoulders, he carefully stepped onto the elevator, his now-orange Space Jump Boots _clink clank_-ing against the steel, hollow surface as he waited for the device to start up.

"Well, let's look on the bright side of things," remarked Edd with a smile as the elevator slowly whirred to life beneath his metallic, gravity-defying boots. "Perhaps, with the aid of this advanced Varia Suit, my adventures will become much more leisurely from here on out. Yes, I think I've adapted to life on Tallon IV quite well, if I do say so myself! I only hope I can keep this up for a few hours longer…"

Finally, the elevator, after a sudden, surprising jolt, began to lower itself into the mysterious Talloric earth at a relatively steady pace – finally, Edd was leaving those blasted Chozo ruins behind. Whether or not he would miss them…well, he couldn't say, really – he was just glad that he had made it out alive.

"Just hold on, fellows – I'm coming!"

And with that, Edd descended into the darkened depths of Tallon IV on an elevator that was headed nowhere but down…

Down…down…down…where the treacherous caverns of Magmoor impatiently awaited his arrival…


	9. The Depths of Magmoor

**_Chapter Nine_**

_**The Depths of Magmoor**_

_Ka-clank…ka-clank…ka-clank…_

Now _this_ was a feeling that Eddy was all too familiar with.

Despite the nauseating sensation evoked by the slithering tendrils of despair so feverishly clawing at his mind, the kid could not help but recall one of the many summer's afternoons where he had experienced that same feeling. He could clearly recall the foolhardy scenario:

Having grown jealous of the copious amounts of attention blessed upon local crybaby Jimmy, Eddy, with the help of his two able friends, had attempted to rob the no-good brat of his "I'm-so-petit-somebody-cater-to-my-every-whim" status. Of course, Eddy had concocted some of his most brilliant tactics in order to usurp the kid's rule, one of which was allowing Ed to drop a derelict, shabby old house on top of him, resulting in a quick concussion. However, no matter how much he tried, and no matter how creative his self-harming plots had seemed, he was always outperformed by that dastardly Jimmy! Thus, when Curly-Q had attained a "safety bubble" in order to protect himself from harm, Eddy took it as a personal challenge and immediately ordered Edd to construct an even _better _suit in order to flaunt his superiority. The suit had been completed, yes, and had been ready for its inaugural test run – to put it tersely, the kid had himself launched into the air, where he practically sailed halfway across the neighborhood. Unfortunately, local athletes Kevin and Rolf had become unwilling obstacles during the test run, and thus were soundly thrashed by Eddy's super-suit…

…and that was when the feeling had taken over.

"Pick a body part, Rolf."

"I am quite partial to feet, Kevin!"

The words were darts piercing the point-decorated target-board of his mind.

Though the fists had indeed hurt and had rightfully resulted in lasting bruises, the pain was miniscule compared to the haunting image of those two jerks looming over him with pitiless eyes, lips curled in sadistic, merciless grins. Indeed, nothing was more terrifying to a kid of Eddy's stature (and reputation, or lack thereof) than being totally exposed for the whooping. "The feeling that you are about to get your butt handed to you" is how some would have described it.

_Ka-clank…ka-clank…ka-clank…_

How Eddy _wished_ that Kevin and Rolf were the ones staggering down the hall toward his prone form, instead of the bloodthirsty alien marauder that was eyeing him so curiously.

* * *

Adorned from hideous head to hideous toe with lustrous plates of night-black armor, the imposing Space Pirate slowly ceased its threatening prowl and eventually stood stalwart in the middle of the dank, industrial hallway, leaving only a six-foot distance between it and Eddy's collapsed and trembling figure…though for Eddy, it felt like a mere six _inches_. Standing tall at a startling seven feet, the lizard-human hybrid took no immediate action other than twitching its skeletal fingers and showing off the vermillion, claw-shaped blade installed on its left forearm. Realizing that standing up was pretty much an impossibility in such a scenario, Eddy, rattled by the near-concussion he had just experienced, simply watched through bulging, disbelieving eyes as the alien's own flame-hued, pupil-less eyes shifted their petrifying gaze from his Space Jump Boots to his bare left hand…from his trusty arm cannon to the yellow shirt on his chest…and from the subtle emerald glow of his high-tech visor to his all-too-human, childish eyes.

This lizard-insect monstrosity, this Space Pirate…what in the world was it trying to discern?

Meanwhile, Eddy just could not get over the fact that he was being confronted by something not even _remotely_ human! In all seriousness, was he truly seeing this? Was he really seeing this seven-foot-tall monstrosity with his own two bloodshot eyeballs? When, oh _when_ was he going to wake up?

Well, he had seen a few of the things back on the _Orpheon_, so why not?

"Gah…whuh-whuh-whuh-what duh…duh-huh…heh-heh!" mumbled Eddy, hoping to dispel the tension practically seething in the air, though his jaw was trembling so severely that all he could come up with was a garbled slew of half-words, accented at the end with a pitiful, nervous chuckle. He honestly would have urinated at that point had he not already done so while plummeting down to Tallon IV in that cramped egg-shell of an escape pod.

_This thing is so going to eat me! _he thought frantically, physically unable to do more than show off an embarrassing, nervous smirk. _This thing is so going to eat me! Oh man, wake up already! Wake up! This is all a bad dream, right? Right?! Oh man, this thing is so going to…_

"_Phhhydt-ryyshn?"_

That, however, had stopped all of Eddy's mental processes right then and there – all he could do was simply gawk in awe at the interstellar insectoid, aghast at its attempts to…_communicate_ with him. Is that what that was? Was this Space Pirate actually trying to strike up a conversation? Would Eddy actually get to live for a few seconds more? It seemed like a sweet deal to him…

…But what in the world was it trying to say?

"Uh…" garbled Eddy, practically digging his fingers into the flooring as he tried to pull himself away from the seemingly diplomatic alien menace. "Sorry, I…uh… can't speak Space Pirate! You know, it all s-sounds Ch-Chinese to me! Should've paid more attention durin' Space Pirate class, right?So, if you don't mind, I'll just be on my way, and we'll call it a…"

_"Plagh! Phedt…rey…shn!" _spat the Pirate through gnashing jowls, motioning toward Eddy's arm cannon as puce saliva trickled down its jaw from under its petrified slug of a tongue. Clearly the thing was completely unable to form coherent English words…either that, or this Pirate was the worst charades player Eddy had ever seen in his twelve years of life. Regardless, the monster seemed to have recognized his durable arm cannon...surely not a good sign.

"Wha-?" blubbered Eddy rather articulately, growing a little irritated at the persistent Pirate. "Say it in English, you idiot!" In all seriousness, it sounded as if the Pirate was trying to say something along the lines of…'Free Hydration'…or something coming out of one of Ed's comic books…titles like "Fire Concentration!" or "Super Galactic Federation!"

_Oh, I get it now! At least…I think I do!_

"Uh, 'Federation?'" Eddy guessed, forcing a smile and nodding his head up and down cooperatively, thinking he had struck gold, despite not knowing what a 'Federation' truly was. "Yeah, yeah! Federation, right?" He pointed at his own arm cannon, trying to make the word-to-image connection. "Yeah, you see this thing? That's _totally_ the new style of Federation! It's the latest craze! Everyone, and I mean _everyone_ is talkin' about it, and believe me when I say it's a super-hit on Mars!"

Even in the face of certain death, Eddy truly was the man with the scam.

"And hey, between you and me…" muttered Eddy, lowering his voice as to attract the curiosity of the Pirate, and seeing as how the thing was simply gawking at him and had not cut off all of his limbs just yet, it _must_ have been suckered in! Eddy smirked characteristically - this was not just about escaping with his life anymore, for a golden opportunity had just risen before him! "I just happen to be one of the few who owns one on _this_ side of the cosmos!" And then he went for the ultimate long-shot, the icing on the cake, the deed that, if it worked, would produce the ultimate warrant for bragging rights for when he returned home! The bombastic boy inhaled…

"And I'll _sell_ it to y-"

"_Phedreyshn…perntr hinntirr!"_

Eddy did not even have time to wonder whether or not his ingenious attempts at negotiation had any effect – the answer manifested itself quite clearly when the Space Pirate suddenly dashed at him, raising its shimmering weapon high above its lizardly head like a crazed, feral warrior.

"Oh jeez!" yelped Eddy in panic, still lying prone on his butt as the cosmic marauder promptly swung its vorpal blade downward before he could even react, intending to vertically bisect him. Now, in any other situation, one in which his assailant would have had no realistic chance of ending his life, Eddy would have simply winced and covered his face as best as he could, bracing for an eventual onslaught of bruisers. In this situation, though…things were a tad different.

Before the Pirate's vermillion edge could even complete the first half of its vicious downward stroke, Eddy subconsciously grabbed hold of the partially-grated flooring and used that grip to thrust himself forward in a tumbling motion, successfully – but barely – avoiding the decisive slash. Quickly gaining control of himself by the end of the second full roll, Eddy propped himself up on his knees and quickly turned his head, realizing, to his immense surprise, that he was, by some freak force of instinct, positioned about two feet away from the Pirate's ill-armored back!

_Hey…hey! That guy has no idea what just happened!_ thought the bewildered Eddy, though he himself was pretty surprised that he had been agile enough to roll between the thing's wiry legs. Nevertheless, a victorious grin had stretched across his face, baring his characteristically showy pearly whites as he prepared to rise up and kick the monster in the reptilian rear. "Hey, buddy! _Get a load of thi-…whoa!_"

_Swoosh!_ Before Eddy could so much as rise to his feet, or even finish that final word, the deft Space Pirate had performed a skillful backswing with its left arm, cutting through the air horizontally with its keen blade…and _just_ missing Eddy's fine head hair by mere centimeters – a close call, indeed.

"Hey, _watch it!_" bellowed the stout street-swindler, his heart practically beating its way out of his rib cage. However, before he could spit out another interjection, Eddy noticed that the Space Pirate, in its hasty attempt to cut off his head, had unwittingly exposed its midnight-black chest armor to him…and to Eddy, the thing practically had a target sign painted onto it. Nearly swallowing his tongue and preventing himself from passing out on the spot, Eddy forced himself to shove his arm cannon toward the alien's perfectly exposed chest area, intelligently taking advantage of the golden opportunity bestowed upon him. Gritting his teeth, preparing for the worst, and hoping for the best, he yelled the first thing that came to mind:

"_Boo-yah, sucker!_" With that, Eddy fired a single concussive missile from his trusty arm cannon at what was perhaps the closest range possible – as a result, a muffled _ka-boom_ resonated through the air and a white shimmer radiated from the point of contact as both Eddy and the Space Pirate were propelled in opposite directions. Now Eddy was, fortunately, in one piece, but even he could tell that the Space Pirate had not expected such a rash maneuver, and the fact that its reinforced chest armor had been reduced to jagged shambles was a sound testament to this.

His reflexes operating at maximum capacity, Eddy skillfully landed on his feet, his metallic boots _clang_ing against the floor as he raised his arm cannon once more, setting the reeling Pirate dead in his sights. Not wanting to waste yet another opportunity, Eddy, biting his tongue and squinting his eyes in true marksman fashion, fired a swift barrage of orange-hued Power Beam shots from his arm cannon. With this final offense, he could practically smell victory's generous and aromatic rewards…and to him, they did smell quite a bit like cold hard cash!

_Graaaack!_ gurgled the ailing Space Pirate, gripping its chest area with its skeletal fingers as it watched the Earthling fire his decisive blasts. Despite the significant handicap bestowed upon the Pirate, however, its reflexes remained lightning-quick, and suddenly, before the Power shots could connect, a sharp _whoosh_ing sound resonated throughout the hallway, and like a defensive chameleon in danger, the deft Space Pirate completely vanished from the boy's sight, dissipating into the moisture-laced air.

"_Ah ha ha ha ha…_whuh_?_" stumbled Eddy, his eyes widening in bewilderment as he witnessed what absolutely _had_ to have been an optical illusion. He had seen quite a few crazy things in the short hours after landing on Tallon IV, but since when did the Space Pirates, or any living creature, for that matter, have the ability to…well, _cheat_ like that? Not even Edd would have found even the slightest trace of logic in such a phenomenon! "Where the heck did it go? It just…uh…" Befuddled beyond belief, Eddy simply glanced around the long length of the hallway, trying to find the potential hiding spot of his assailant, but to no avail. Shrugging in bewilderment and haphazardly accepting victory, he allowed himself a miniscule grin before turning around…

…without looking where he was going, of course.

Despite this foolish mishap, the boy's reflexes were sharp, and his instincts quite keen for his age! With a deft duck at the right moment, Eddy had skillfully dodged a potentially lethal sucker-punch delivered by the tenacious Space Pirate, who had apparently rendered itself invisible and then cleverly positioned itself behind Eddy for a sneak attack. At this point, the cosmic warrior must have been quite surprised, and even a tad impressed, by his opponent's apparent expertise, though there was no way to tell if the Earthling was really this proficient a combatant, or if it was all just blind luck.

"Aw c'mon!" taunted a smiling, yet heavily perspiring Eddy, thrusting his arm cannon directly into his assailant's reptilian visage, preparing to deal the finishing blow. "I thought you were supposed to be the tough guy! Sor-_oof!_"

Alas! Only a split second after pronouncing the first syllable of the word "sorry", Eddy felt the all of the air escape his lungs at once as the Pirate executed a perfect roundhouse kick, which connected with the boy's stomach, launching him about fifteen feet back down the hallway, where he skidded face-first along the grated floor, his skin cut and bruised by the rough surface. However, not willing to admit defeat quite yet, Eddy had immediately caught himself mid-skid and had awkwardly risen to his feet, shaken by the sudden blow – Kevin and Rolf had never thrown kicks of _that_ caliber, that was for sure!

"Okay…gotta hand it to ya…that was good," panted Eddy, clutching his pounding abdomen with his left hand in an attempt to prevent himself from throwing up. While doing so, he warily eyed that jerk of a Space Pirate, which had since regained its composure and looked ready to go at it again. Eddy recognized that, despite his best efforts, he would probably meet his end within the next few moments, though he acknowledged that for a twelve-year-old kid, he did alright for himself – he did not _like_ the concept of getting his butt handed to him by an alien, but what a way to go, right?

"Oh man…okay, joke's over…can I wake up now?!" he stammered to himself – forget it…no way was he ready to meet his maker just yet! He had a life to live and a successful (or so he earnestly hoped) future ahead of him! What was more, he had friends to save and a neighborhood to return to!

However, before Eddy could even try to concoct a clever solution to the dilemma at hand, the Space Pirate had instantly become invisible again, the trademark _whoosh_ing noise reverberating off of the rocky walls of the semi-established hallway.

_Hey, stop it, will ya?!_ thought Eddy in frustration, clearly convinced that nobody should have been able to do something as miraculous as that. _What a dirty, no-good cheater! At least let me try that out!_

…And then the silence set in again…that ever-uncomfortable absence of sound so akin to the feeling of despair that always took over before a major butt-whooping. Despite knowing that his attacker was indeed present somewhere within the long hallway, Eddy just could not shake off that ice-cold feeling of isolation. At that point, he knew he had to stay on his toes…or meet his end at the tip of that interstellar hunter's vermillion edge. As much as he tried to prevent the feeling of aloneness from settling in, it was nearly impossible – before he knew it, a full _minute_ had passed without _any_ occurrences whatsoever.

_C'mon, it's gotta show up sometime!_ thought Eddy, his knees trembling despite the tough-guy image that he was trying to convey through his confident face. The beast was probably going for the element of surprise, and for all he knew, it was working. He would never see it coming – the thing was probably a professional assassin, after all. So all he could do was wait…and Eddy was not all that great when it came to waiting around.

_He's…gotta…be…somewhere…!_

Then he heard the dirt _krish-shhk _only a few inches behind him…

_Grrraaaackk!_

Without a moment's hesitation, and before even a trace of a thought could bounce off the corners of his brain, Eddy instantaneously turned around and pushed his arm cannon directly into the Space Pirate's scaly, grotesque mug, a full Power Beam shot charged and shimmering radiantly like a miniature sun at the end of the barrel. Turning away in order to avoid any lasting psychological trauma, Eddy gulped hard and, without any further hesitation, fired the bowling-ball-sized energy blast at point-blank range.

…And he waited until he heard the Pirate's ooze-spattered body collapse soundly on the alloyed floor before turning away from the grotesque scene, whereupon he opened his eyes and tried his very best not to heave.

_Okay, I did it, so get a grip. I did it, get a grip! I did it, get a grip!_ thought Eddy as he danced nervously in place, trying to keep his body and mind under control as calmly as he could (yet another thing he was not so versed at), and while it took him a few strenuous moments, he eventually simmered down to the point where the possibility of breaking down into a fit of insanity was pretty much off the table. It was at that point when he realized how difficult it was to end the life of any living creature, hostile or not, Space Pirate or not.

_After all, Eddy…that could have been us._

"Aw, shut up, already!" Eddy blurted aloud, his voice aquiver with anxiety. He was trying to keep the subject off of his mind, but he could not help wonder if all Space Pirates were as trained, professional, deadly, tenacious, vile, evil, dirty, disgusting, and all-around _powerful_ as the one he had just taken out. Though this had only been the second Space Pirate that he had successfully "offed", Eddy could not help but shiver at the prospect of having to eventually get used to dealing with these monsters, especially in such a freakish manner. After all, the only things _he_ had ever killed were the simple reputations of his dear friends Ed and Edd – not like they had any in the first place, of course. However, this latest confrontation had substantially increased his adrenaline flow, which in turn managed to make him a little less nervous…minutely, of course, but Eddy would gladly take any helping of courage he could get.

Thus, despite a rapidly beating heart and a proverbial frog in his throat, Eddy energetically jogged down the hallway, intelligently making sure to look over his shoulder several times as he went, until he reached the alloy-plated automated door at the very end, which he had intended to head through before his unfortunate confrontation with the alien kind. Nervously, he crouched down by it and attempted to get a hold of himself – kind of a tough thing to do when Edd was not around to do it for him.

"Well, _that_ wasn't so bad, right? H-hey, yeah! I guess I'm pretty good at this, huh?" chuckled Eddy to himself as he tried to stop his limbs from rattling while simultaneously trying to ignore the searing pain fluidly coursing through his oversized jaw – the tussle with the Pirate had distracted him from the severe ache that had been inflicted upon it earlier on. "Yeah, the way I see it, those losers don't stand a _chance_ against me! _Right…_well, er, let's see what's happenin' in here…"

Despite the not-so-eloquent, self-directed pep-talk, Eddy could not help but wince when the door slid open with a heart-stopping _whirr-shiiiing!_ Fully expecting to be overwhelmed by a flurry of laser-blades and intense energy- blasts, Eddy peeked through the doorway, apprehensive as a hyperactive mouse, as per usual in such situations. Thankfully, his body was still in once piece and his head was still resting on his shoulders…well, as far as he could tell, anyway.

"Coast is clear!" whispered Eddy to himself, wiping his sweat-fogged visor a few times as he hesitantly made his move. "Jeez…it's like a stupid haunted house in here."

Wishing that he had the ability to see in all directions at once, Eddy found himself slowly stepping across the threshold and into a rather large underground vicinity, the area of which probably matched that of the circular cul-de-sac center, though unlike his humble neighborhood, this area seemed to be plastered with dark, alloyed flooring and unfinished metallic walling – probably construction efforts on the part of the Space Pirates that were not quite complete. Thus, Eddy felt as if he arrived a few hours too early for a party…and that was probably the case, as the Pirates he had previously seen outside seemed to have been preoccupied with transporting storage crates and miscellaneous materials elsewhere.

In the center of the unfinished chamber rose what appeared to be a twelve-foot-tall containment tank comprised primarily out of some type of reinforced glass – in fact, the tank seemed eerily comparable to the ones that Eddy and his pals had eyed back on the _Orpheon_…did this one contain yet another horrid creature the likes of which could only be found in Ed's vast collection of comic chronicles? He could not tell, for the glass was heavily tinted with an unnatural electric blue fog, and from a distance, the contents were shrouded in mystery…and perhaps for the better.

Surrounding the ominous obstruction were four separate technological clusters consisting of all sorts of who's-its and what's-its, including monitors, terminals, and other things that someone like Edd would be more attuned to. Two of these clusters were placed to the Northeast and Southeast about six feet away from the central tank, and there were two more on the opposite side. The entire image reminded Eddy of the typical, high-tech evil lairs of various villains in classic spy movies. If those Pirates were good at one thing, it was establishing a base of operations, even if they were not quite finished fixing it up.

But really, who cared as long as there weren't any Space Pirates around…and thankfully, upon further inspection on Eddy's part, there _weren't_. Of course, this did not comfort the boy very much, as it still looked and felt like a convenient place for those blasted aliens to hold a birthday party. The place was still pretty dank, too.

"Man, would it kill these idiots to put in some air conditioning? I'm practically choking here!" complained a thoroughly cross Eddy, swallowing a cough as he feasted his eyes upon his surroundings. The technology looked pretty advanced, but how was a guy like him supposed to figure out how to run that junk? Instead, he averted his ever-curious eyes toward the massive containment tank serving as the room's centerpiece, a cynical frown stretching across his weary face as he gazed upon it. "And you gotta be kiddin' me…if those dolts are making any more gross-out bugs, I'm leavin'."

Of course, he was forgetting that his current situation did not allow for such an option…or maybe he _wanted_ to forget. The tank seemed like an ample distraction, anyway. "Wonder if this is where Lumpy gets all his furniture…?" the loudmouth sarcastically scoffed. "Or maybe they're coming up with a new kind of Jawbreaker…" Wishful thinking, but this was Eddy, Jawbreaker entrepreneur extraordinaire!

Regardless, Eddy pressed his face against the reinforced glass, his visor _clink_-ing on contact as he squinted his eyes, trying to see past the azure fog contained within…

"…Hey, I think I see something…" muttered the boy as he bit his lower lip, tapping his visor in hopes of activating some sort of obscure x-ray function. Unlike Edd, he did not really know the device like the back of his hand. "Oh, wait! There it is…I see it…uh…_holy cow!_"

As soon as he had gotten a look at the monstrosity stored within, Eddy subconsciously pushed himself away from the tank and hopped several feet backward, rubbing his visor a fair number of times in order to make sure the device was not going screwy on him.

"What the heck…_is_ that thing?!" he gasped, trying to comprehend how the Space Pirates could have had the imagination to _create_ such a heinous horror! First the Parasite Queen, and now this! Whatever those Pirates were using to breed such freakish monsters, it sure as heck was _not_ the new Jawbreaker flavor.

"And I thought Ed's monster act was freaky!" remarked Eddy, his bewilderment gradually rising to an even higher level than before.

From that distance, however, he did happen to notice something strange about the containment tank itself: from what he could tell, there appeared to be an assortment of cobalt-blue, vine-like "veins" creeping up from the bottom of the tank and stretching upward along its length. He could not really tell, but whatever those things were, they were probably related to the noxious blue fog sealed within the tank itself. Not that it mattered to Eddy, of course – he was not planning on dealing with it anytime soon, that was for sure (unless it happened to fetch a pretty penny back on Earth, in which case he'd bring the stuff by the truckload!).

"But hey, gimme an army of those Parasite-things before ya give me somethin' like _that _freak-show," he concluded, shaking his head side to side in an attempt to banish the monstrous image from his mind. Ed would probably get a kick out of it if he ever bothered to show up.

The terminals surrounding the tank, however, seemed to be ample sources of distraction, and seeing as how the Space Pirates had yet to show, Eddy decided to fiddle around with them a bit. Of course, to his disappointment, he found that only one of them – the Northeast one – was activated, one of its monitors displaying a hazy, boring-looking still image, the other screen flickering in forest-green haze while displaying electric-green gibberish in bright text. He was not really interested in that fancy shmansy scientific mumbo-jumbo, but it was something to look at to pass the time.

"Huh…looks as easy as Chinese," sputtered Eddy cynically after attempting to read the first word displayed on the text-ridden screen. "Where's Sockhead when you need him?" At that point, though, he was struck with quite the clever idea and began to tap the corners of his visor randomly, hoping to access a certain module. "Oh come on, Double Dee does it all the time! Where…_are_ ya…?!"

After about three more seconds of frustrated tapping, the layout of Eddy's interface had suddenly changed, and he noticed that a box-like target reticule had been summoned into the center of his vision – apparently, he had successfully found the Scan module using his…ingenious intuition!

"Huh…'bout time," he muttered as he tapped his visor again, focusing on the text on the screen and hoping that his interface would magically tell him what it meant…of course, he still felt like an idiot staring at a computer screen for so long. "Yeah, I bet I look like such a nerd right now."

He did not have to wait long, however, for in an instant, the text had magically appeared across his interface in perfectly readable English, just how he liked it, though the bright-green text immediately brought on the warning signs of a headache. "Oh man, I bet this'll tell me about some secret exit I can use to get the heck outta here!" hoped Eddy in desperation as he attempted to read the text – in fact, it was the first time he had ever willingly read something in a long, long time…

_Initial Project Helix experiments with Space Pirate embryos were disastrous. The Phazon-infusion process degenerated brain tissue even as it augmented muscle mass. None of what we have termed 'Elite Pirates' lived to maturity: the few that survived their infanthood suffered severe psychotic breakdowns as juveniles, killing anything within their zone of perception. Research from team Sclera made a recent breakthrough, in which parasite studies with a Phazon strain code-named 'Vertigo' were highly successful. Since then, we have fused Vertigo Phazon with Space Pirate DNA with great success. The latest batch of Elite Pirates have reached maturity successfully and are ready for field testing and training._

"…Uh…what the heck _is_ this junk?" scoffed Eddy as he tapped the text off of his visor, frustrated at the data's penchant for confusing vocabulary and the apparent lack of specific directions for Earthlings. "I mean…how am I supposed to know what…I dunno…'Phazon' is? Or 'Elite Pirates'? I don't get any of that lame DNA mumbo-jumbo anyway! This stuff's bunk…"

Though he did not know it at the time, the data that he had procured would have probably piqued the interest of someone who had the attention span and intelligence necessary to make all of the implied connections, but this was Eddy, the boy with the attention span as long as a cheese stick.

Instead, he simply shrugged and turned away from the terminal, looking around for some sort of escape route, as going back the way he came was a bit out of the question at that point. Growing a bit frustrated, he looked upward and noticed that, surprisingly, the room stretched upward to quite a remarkable height – from what he could see, there were two levels of catwalks leading up to the room's high ceiling, each positioned about twenty feet higher than the other. He was no genius, but he guessed that the entire chamber climbed to a height of about sixty feet. Quite a height, indeed…

…_Wait a second._

Eddy quickly averted his gaze toward the other monitor he had glanced at only moments ago and gawked bewilderedly at the object displayed on the screen - he reached under his visor and rubbed his eyes vigorously, hoping that his vision was working properly. He gawked once more…and his aching jaw dropped in disbelief – indeed, displayed on the screen was a slightly low-quality live feed of the gunship he and his friends had found on the outskirts of the _Orpheon_! From what he could see, the slightly-rattled vessel appeared to be resting in a rain-drenched, rocky locale reminiscent of a rainforest clearing, probably somewhere else on the planet…probably somewhere far, far away from where he was. Still…

"That's it! That's the ship!" Eddy cried in joy – if the ship was intact, then that meant that Edd had survived the fall through the atmosphere and had landed safely! "Oh man, if I could just get over there…heck, Double Dee's probably waitin' around inside! Good move, Sockhead…no way you'd have the guts to head out into the wild by yourself." Despite the slightly condescending remark, the wide grin on Eddy's face was enough to prove that he was thankful for Edd's survival…and already he had a feeling that he, Edd, and Ed all had a tough road ahead of them. "All I need to do is get out of this stinkin' dump…"

He paused for a moment and thought about the image for a while, and although he was pumped to see that at least one of his friends was still alive and kicking, he was hit with a haunting realization. "But…if I can see the ship on this screen, that means…that means the Space Pirates…_oh jeez_!"

_Whizzzzz-clank!_

His heart skipping a beat, Eddy quickly turned around upon hearing the all-too-familiar _whizzz-_ing noise of the automatic door from which he had originally entered, and much to his horror, three hulking, humanoid beings had just crossed the threshold and into the vicinity…Space Pirates on patrol, no doubt!

_Oh man, I gotta hide!_ thought Eddy as he darted behind the central bio-tank, feverishly directing his gaze to every conceivable corner in the room, trying to find a safe haven before those monstrous marauders could catch sight of him. He thought about hiding behind the terminal clusters, but of course the Pirates were probably going to use them. Sweat practically streaming down his face, Eddy could feel his options quickly slipping away as the Space Pirates drew nearer and nearer to his position…

However, when all chances for survival had seemingly vanished, he gazed at the catwalks above, their sprawling lengths acting as stairways to safety and amnesty from his alien pursuers. It probably was not the easiest path to take, and the climb would have probably proven to be gruelingly tough…

…but Eddy always knew that he was destined for higher places.

* * *

"Oh, thank goodness…honestly, I've had just about enough of this unbearable lack of illumination!"

Eddward allowed himself a sigh of relief upon noticing the long-awaited return of light to the rather uncomfortably spacious elevator shaft. The deep descent into the depths of Tallon IV's surface had proven to be quite bleak, and while Edd was not exactly known for his fear of the dark, it had become bothersome and rather unpleasant, to say the least.

A slight jolt reverberated through the alloyed plating of the Chozo-crafted elevator as it unsteadily transitioned from a slow descent to a full stop. Feeling a light wave of disorientation creep over him, Edd cautiously stepped off of the mobile surface and calmly rubbed his temples, attempting to fight off a headache no doubt caused by the drastic change from pitch blackness to nearly-normal lighting.

"Well, I suppose I should be thankful that I made it down here in once piece, and with my sanity intact," remarked a grateful Edd, glad to be away from the awe-inspiring but simultaneously tiresome Chozo Ruins, yet apprehensive of the trials that no doubt awaited him in this new region. "But really, if there is one thing that the Varia Suit _should_ provide, it's a flashlight! Oh well…" He paused before progressing further, and took full measure of the sights before him. "Let's see now…how to assess these so-called 'Magmoor Caverns' I've stumbled upon…?"

For starters, it appeared 'caverns' was a bit of a misnomer as far as the environment was concerned. Unfurled before Edd's eyes was a corridor of grandiose length, the walls of which seemed to have been constructed with the same grade of material that made up the buildings in the decrepit ruins he had visited before. Furthermore, the ceiling appeared to have been quite high, so much so that it seemed to be partially obscured by a blanket of pitch blackness – heck, the only illumination radiating within the hallway seemed to have been provided by a series of semi-artificial lights along the hallway's length, akin to the ones found in the Chozo Ruins – the only difference was that the ruins had used natural sunlight as the primary means of illuminating the complex, and for all Edd knew, Magmoor may have been an area without such a blessing.

Edd had become quite accustomed to such locales, of course. Really, it would have taken a bit more than a lack of sunlight to unnerve him, what with all of his planet-venturing experience!

Thus, having taken full measure of his immediate surroundings, he took a few steps forward, knowing that he did not have any time to lose in locating his lost pals. As soon as he had done so, however, a shrill shrieking noise had pervaded through the air and rattled against his eardrums quite violently…like sharp drumsticks against a worn timpani. Edd instantly held his hands to his ears and clenched his teeth in pain while looking upward, where the source of the treacherous noise seemed to have been coming from.

"What in the world…_is _that confounded racket?!" he cried through a strained expression. And alas! No sooner had he glanced upward when he had laid his eyes upon not one, certainly not two, but three indistinguishable beings, each about the size of an official football, spiraling madly toward him from their ceiling perch.

Hardly finding time to utter anything along the lines of "wah!", Edd defensively raised his arm cannon and, closing one eye in order to slightly increase his focus, pot-shot two of the violent, bat-like creatures straight out of the air! Obviously the kid's aim was improving, but the third bat creature was not treated to a third shot, and instead made a beeline directly for Edd's brainy head. His reflexes taking control, Edd quickly ducked and the creature, as a result, simply zoomed past his head and crashed onto the ground, where it subsequently proceeded to…explode?

Well, it _did_ burst into small, gooey chunks… It was hard to believe, but the thing actually combusted on the spot.

"That's _disgusting_…!" groaned a repulsed Edd, wide-eyed at the completely profound biological behavior of Tallon IV's native creatures. "Honestly, the chain of evolution of the creatures of this planet is in dire need of inspection!" Thoroughly appalled and hoping never to have a similar encounter again, Edd decided to press on.

Thus the boy continued to head down the long corridor, and in the midst of his travel, he found himself suddenly blasted squarely in the face by a stream of pumpkin-hued steam, which had apparently sprayed right out of a sizeable crack in the rocky floor. Instantly he staggered backward in shock and collided into the cave wall, but when he regained his composure, he realized something quite unusual: from what he could see, his visor had quickly extended downward in order to shield the entirety of his face from the harmful steam, and when it did, small filtering holes had appeared on both sides near his cheeks. What was more, his Varia Suit had begun glowing with a steady, low-key radiance - apparently, the suit had responded to the sudden increase in temperature that Edd had just been exposed to by regulating his body temperature accordingly, and it seemed that the visor's adjustment was a side-function of the suit itself.

Not a bad set of threads, after all.

"What a truly magnificent design!" remarked Edd at a relatively speedy pace, no doubt in a state of absolute wonder and curiosity as he inquisitively prodded his new air-mask module. He remembered how he and his two friends had each found similar masks in the gunship back when they first arrived outside Tallon IV's orbit, and that they had used those masks to traverse through airless space in order to reach the _Orpheon_ – this seemed like a more convenient alternative to those separate modules. "If I'm understanding this correctly, the Varia Suit is not only designed to regulate my body temperature according to environmental specifications, but it _also_ allows for normal respiratory activity despite the absence of breathable air! I'll have to inspect the functions of this outfit further in order to fully understand it, but I must say that this is a great convenience!"

Wiping the orange-colored water droplets off of his temporarily enhanced visor-mask, Edd turned the corner at the far end of the hallway and immediately came across a pathway…or what _seemed_ to be a pathway leading ever further into the caverns. For sure, the area was indeed becoming more cave-like, as the constructed wall panels had begun to diminish in number, eventually transitioning into natural, rocky, uneven cave walls laced with grainy minerals and sparkling ore. From what Edd could see from his position, a small pathway leading further into the caves was located about thirty feet away, but resting between him and that location just so happened to be a particularly "inviting" chasm filled with an overwhelming supply of…magma, of all things!

The only break in this tiny sea of blacks, oranges, and reds happened to be a four-by-five-foot isle of heat-blackened rock floating in the midst of the pool, on which lived what appeared to be a particularly large creature, slightly resembling an oversized snail, and from what Edd could tell, this creature had apparently formed a habit of continually circling about on that platform, no doubt scavenging for traces of whatever it deemed edible.

_My, how convenient…_ thought Edd, a sarcastic frown forming across his increasingly weary face.

Now, trying to redeem his pacifistic character after a series of violent scuffles in the Chozo Ruins, Edd made no immediate attempts to harm the seemingly docile creature. Instead, he opted to take a deep breath and bend his knees a tad, biting his lower lip nervously as he tried to fight off the continuous urges to step back and say "hold on, let me think about this rationally." Edd surely knew the importance of being rational in _all _situations, but how was he to clear this pool of melting death otherwise? Surely he could not turn back!

_Okay, now…be calm, Eddward…you can do this…on the count of three…one…two…_

"Three!" With a rather clumsy hop, Edd slowly careened downward, in a carefully-controlled arc, onto the small, rocky island in the midst of the magma pool, his lustrous Varia Suit protecting him from the gnawing heat. After such a maneuver, Edd was sure that he was getting the hang of those glorious Space Jump Boots of his. Still, he had no time to contemplate what he had just done or even what he was about to do, and thus Edd immediately made a second leap toward the other end of the magma pool. Fortunately, with the help of his gravity-defying footwear, he easily cleared the deadly gap and landed on the rocky ground with a _chh-kink_, leaving the harmless, snail-like denizen of the caverns to its…feast?

"Well, that was an experience…and I'm still having trouble believing that I, of all people, cleared that kind of death-trap!" muttered Edd as he once again brushed the dust away from his Varia Suit, having become quite determined to maintain its impressive orange luster – perhaps Eddy's absence was making Edd's own vanity more noticeable?

_Hardly!_ he thought as he ducked under a rocky protrusion in the ceiling and proceeded down the pathway he had discovered. _No, I must insist that my performance as of now has been quite respectable even without the help of my friends. Rest assured, I can do things on my own…and furthermore…what the…?_

"…Oh…my…"

Of course, having reached the definite "end" of the pathway and having gotten a good glimpse at what exactly was in store for him, Edd had begun to doubt that he would find any relaxing sights within the depths of Magmoor.

"Wh-what in heaven's name is _this_?!" he cried with wide-open eyes, gawking at the horrifying scene that he had chanced upon. Before him stretched a particularly large cave that opened up into a substantially wider cavern, the floor of which had been seemingly replaced in favor of a massive pit of seething _lava_ death that just so happened to extend to about the size of a modern elliptical swimming pool. The two tiny, rock-composed islands floating about within the vastness of the death-trap were somewhat reassuring, yes, and there was no doubt that Edd's Space Jump Boots would have allowed him to clear the gap with the help of those two formations. The problem, though, was manifested in the form of – and Edd just could not believe the audacity of this – two automated _flamethrowers _jutting out from each wall, bisecting the magma pool with a near-continuous streamline of fire! They really were _kind of_ like the laser-traps seen in most spy movies…the ones that would normally trigger some sort of ambiguous alarm…except that _these_ traps seemed to have a penchant for shooting streams of _flames_ instead! Edd did notice that they only spat heated death for five-second intervals before temporarily shutting down, but honestly…

"Now, really, _what_ is the practicality in installing such devices?!" complained a confounded Edd, grudgingly shaking his fists at the Chozo, the assumed architects such devices. "Really, I'm humbled by the obstacles that the ancients have placed before me in order to test my mirth…but I don't want to be _killed_ by them!"

Deciding that it would be best not to waste time complaining about one or two design flaws within what was presumably a Chozo-colonized area, Edd decided to get a move on. After patiently waiting for the flames' five-second death-spray to end, he immediately jumped toward the first rocky island in the lava pool, landing safely just before the first fire-jet could activate again. Then, assuming that he would have enough time to complete the maneuver, he hopped toward the second island located about ten feet away. However, just as he performed the leap of faith, flame-jet suddenly activated, two seconds before the scheduled time! Thinking quickly, Edd slightly diverted his "flight" path and instead steered himself straight for the area of the wall just above the flamethrower, where he performed quite the impressive wall-kick. The change in direction and momentum had allowed him to divert his path once again and land safely, but not unshaken, on the other side of the magma pool.

Clearly, Edd's acrobatic skills were beginning to improve, even if he had to give all of the credit to his Space Jump Boots.

"Blasted Chozo death-trap…why, I've never seen such a…if I had my way…" Edd's angry grumbles began to trail off into silence as he strolled down the pathway, his respect for the Chozo architects of old diminished somewhat. In all seriousness, such traps were things that Edd would have expected from the malevolent Space Pirates, not the respected ancients of Tallon IV! "I mean, honestly…who can expect to want to visit this alleged 'paradise' if its inhabitants insist on-"

The enormous amount of aqua-green gunk that had suddenly been splattered all over Edd's visor-shielded face had been enough to convince him to shut up, stop complaining, and get a move on. Quickly wiping the jelly-like ooze off of his mask, the infuriated boy averted his impatient gaze downward and noticed a hand-sized insect, slightly resembling some sort of light-turquoise cockroach, emitting what sounded like a childish, high-pitched laugh before quickly burrowing deep into the dirt, having performed its daily spit-out-gunk-at-random-Earthlings ritual.

Truly the height of annoyance incarnate!

Edd would have uttered something in response, but his mother had once educated him on the vices of reciting profane words. Since he was a self-proclaimed "good boy," and because he ultimately thought better of it, he decided instead to wipe the rest of the gunk off of his mask and proceed down the pathway.

Thus, noticing a bit of a pattern, Edd came across yet _another_ sizeable magma-decorated chamber – however, as soon as he had entered the general area, he felt a thick wave of heat hit him like a translucent wall, though his Varia Suit was quick to regulate his temperature accordingly. Despite the fact that his visor was reading the temperature at two-hundred-and-fifty degrees Celsius, Edd still could not get over the fact that his attire was allowing him to survive such extreme conditions. Brushing the matter aside, though, he turned his attention to the locale…and, to his relief, there was much more to see in _this _area.

…Though not all of it was exactly pleasant to the eyes. The first thing he noticed were the gorgeous, if massive stalactites drooping lazily from the ceiling, their smooth surfaces glistening due to their ore composition. These definitely added to the scenery, that much was certain. However, the presence of the puce-colored, bloated, jack-like objects hovering around the room spewing what appeared to be forest-green, noxious gas was not that much of a pretty sight, and the fact that there were about a dozen of them was not quite adding to the "spectacle." Edd was once again thankful for his augmented visor – the fumes emitted from those blasted…creatures?…would have probably rendered the atmosphere even more un-breathable than it already was.

Shrugging in disappointment, Edd grudgingly stepped forward, eager to make swift progress after realizing that the Magmoor Caverns may have actually been more dangerous than the _Orpheon_, the Tallon Overworld, and the Chozo Ruins combined, and thus he approached the lava shoreline in order to look for a quick and painless way out.

However, as he neared the lava's edge, a faint rumbling had begun to quake the very foundations of the chamber, causing pebbles and dirt to lightly rain from the rocky ceiling. Edd began to look around frantically, his panic levels rising as he half-expected a lava-tsunami to rise up and completely take him out with a decisive, melting wave.

"Uh…oh dear, what is this phenomenon?!" he stammered, slowly backing away from the edge of the magma once he noticed that it had slowly begun to bubble and brew…

And something quite monumental occurred indeed - something Edd would only expect in his vilest of nightmares! Yes, from the tumultuous sea of lava burst forth a behemoth of truly frightening proportions, a ferocious magma-serpent whose hunger could only be quelled by the flesh of mere mortals! With a limbless, snake-like body covered in scales of black, red, and orange, the roar that burst forth from its car-gnashing jowls was deafening to the ears, unpleasant to the eyes, and quite putrid to the nose! Truly, the beast could only be known as what Edd's trusty Scan visor had indicated: the ferocious Magmoor, dragon of the deep, dire depths of Tallon IV!

With Ed-like narrations laying siege on his brain, Edd could do nothing but stumble backward, his mouth agape at the sight of a beast not nearly as monumental as the vile Flaahgra, but certainly twice as vicious! The Earthling could do nothing in response to the monster's grandiose entrance – he could not even raise his arm cannon due to his limbs being rendered a-quiver!

"A-guh…guh…"

Truly the most articulate words a man could blather when confronted by such a beast!

Much to his horror, the tyrannous Magmoor had wasted no time in beginning its meal-preparations, for with a quick, preliminary rearing of its head, it unleashed a treacherous torrent of fire, flames the magnitude of which could only be seen in the underworld itself!

However, by an act of miraculous intervention, Edd had regained control of his body long enough to react to the beast's killing breath by unleashing his ever-trusty Grapple Beam toward one of the stalactites hanging from the cavern ceiling. Thus, with a swift tug on his part, Edd was immediately pulled up to the stalactite, where he hung in safety, having just avoided a fiery deluge that would have surely, as Rolf would have put it, "cooked his goose." The Magmoor was keen, however, and had realized that the boy had escaped its wrath – it quickly responded by looking straight upward, where Edd hung rather helplessly, his bloodshot eyes gawking downward at what was perhaps the most frightening foe he had ever seen in his life.

"_Wait…wait, stop!_" screamed the boy as the Magmoor prepared to belch up yet another stream of death-fire from its furnace-gut. However, just before it could even get one solitary ember out of its throat, something had caught Edd's keen eye…yes, this looked quite familiar! A jutting rock hanging from the ceiling, positioned about ten feet away, had triggered a flashbulb memory of Ed using his Grapple Beam on the _Orpheon_ on a relatively similar outcropping. With the Magmoor about to incinerate him like a human marshmallow and several of those gas-spewing, floating, bloated jacks hovering toward his position, Edd reflexively sent out his Grapple Beam once more toward the outcropping, onto which it immediately latched. Thus, uncharacteristically throwing caution to the wind and having no time to waste, he swung from the stalactite and across the magma pool, whereupon he deactivated his Grapple Beam, allowing him to safely land on the other side of the chamber, far away from the Magmoor…well, that was what he had hoped, at least. The thing apparently had not noticed his Tarzan-esque stunt.

"I…I…I made it…!" stammered Edd quietly, in utter disbelief and rather in shock once he had realized that he had actually performed such daring moves…such miraculous, acrobatic stunts…_him! Eddward!_ At that point, he was thoroughly convinced that he could do something like that, he could have done anything. "Ha…haha! I survived! I escaped the jaws of death, and all thanks to my ingenuity! I'm speechless! I'm…_ooof!"_

Well, if something was going to render him speechless, it was the act of colliding into a solid stone wall.

It was true that he had made it to the other side of the magma cavern. The problem was, at that particular side, there happened to be no visible path for him to take – for all intents and purposes, Edd had swung himself into a dead end. Now, he was sure that either Ed or Eddy would have spent the rest of their lives staring at this wall, having absolutely no idea what to do in such a situation. However, Edd was just a tad different…

"Really, now, must I be tested in such an elementary manner? Please…" scoffed Edd with a slight smile on his face, feeling absolutely _great_ after proving his worth in the face of certain death. Never taking his eyes off of the solid wall that lay before him, he tapped his left-hand fingers against his gloved palm, instantly generating one of his trusty static-esque bombs, ready for immediate use. If anything, his confrontation with the Flaahgra had made him quite a master at using these devices, and coupled with the fact that he knew a shoddy piece of wallwork when he saw one, Edd knew precisely what he was doing. Thus, he softly laid the basketball-sized explosive on the ground and backed away a couple of feet, waited a few seconds…

…And watched as the resulting low-magnitude explosion blew a six-by-six-foot hole in the rock solid wall. "Ah yes, there we go. Nothing to it, I daresay!" chuckled Edd as he stepped over the small mound of jagged wall-debris and into the darkened passageway that he had so ingeniously uncovered. If anything was drastically improving with this child, it was most definitely his penchant for resourcefulness and his ever-growing knack for pointing out the smallest of details. The effort, actually, had effectively taken his mind off of the startling encounter with the Magmoor, and thus he took on a somewhat positive state of mind…maybe he was getting a bit drowsy, but then again, who would have known?

"But really, there is one thing about Magmoor that I find truly remarkable, something that I had not seen within the Chozo Ruins," he remarked to himself as he carefully made his way through the darkened tunnel and toward the more illuminated chamber that awaited at the end. "And that is the sheer natural beauty of it. True, they are treacherous caverns and I probably would never pass through them again if I were given the chance, but there's something about a planet's indirect ability to mold such wondrous locations by itself…that's something that no architect could ever accomplish…!"

And when Edd had finally exited that blackened cave, he saw that the expansive cavern unfurled before him was truly a testament to his claims. Practically dominated by mammoth towers comprised of sheer ore and stone, lined with intertwining, never-ending rivers of molten reds and oranges, speckled with high-reaching, perpetual streams of orange steam shooting out of the ground and walls alike, Magmoor was truly a sight to behold, if only because it was all constructed not by Chozo or man, but by Tallon IV itself and its ever-changing form. Additionally, for the first time since he had arrived within these bleak depths, Edd could finally see the brilliant sky of Tallon IV, a pastel-piece of crimsons, grays, and pinks, caused by the steam-ridden atmosphere of the caverns – Edd had to admit that it was nice to see that he was not sealed away within an inescapable dungeon like he thought.

"While they could probably devise nearly a hundred ways to melt one alive," chuckled Edd as he took in the sights before pressing onward. "I have to admit that I wouldn't mind having my picture taken in front of these magnificent landscapes…"

Because, as much as he disliked his current predicament, Edd would probably be the only human to ever see the impressive caverns deep within the surface of Tallon IV with his own eyes…

* * *

_Grr-rack…_

_Gg-grmph?_

_Rr-phmgr!_

Peering down from the surprisingly sturdy catwalk positioned about twenty feet above the ground, Eddy could not help but raise an eyebrow as he tried to discern what in the world those lecherous Space Pirates were saying to each other. Thankfully, he had been able to evade the aliens by using his Space Jump Boots to launch himself onto the lower catwalk just before they could spot him, and thus they did not find any signs of intrusion and proceeded to fiddle around with those fancy terminals of theirs and speak in indecipherable tongues. Frankly, to Eddy, their garbled animal-speak pretty much amounted to what it sounded like: mindless gibberish…or Sarah.

"Idiots," muttered Eddy in disdain as he turned his head away from the three Pirates and carefully rose to his feet, eager to keep his position hidden from his foes. "Well, enough messing around. I gotta get outta here." Nonchalantly he looked upward, groaning in disappointment at the idea of having to somehow get up to the other catwalk before even hoping to find a way out of the complex. Making sure that he remained out of the Space Pirates' sights was going to be a problem, as well, and his predominantly bright-yellow shirt was not the most espionage-oriented hue, either.

"So how the heck am I gonna get all the way up there?" he grumbled to himself. He knew that he had the Space Jump Boots, and he had a pretty firm grasp on how they functioned, too. He also knew he had the Grapple Beam at his disposal, and since he had seen Ed use it back on the _Orpheon_, he figured that he should have been able to use it, as well. Even with all of this handy equipment, though, the problem was that the second catwalk was positioned about twenty feet above him, and he had to somehow get on _top_ of it. With no ladders on the walls and no signs of a stairway on either end of the catwalk, it was going to be a trickier venture than he originally thought. "Ugh, where's Sockhead when you need 'im?"

At that point he looked to his left, toward the center of the steel-structured catwalk, having seen something a bit strange in his peripheral view. Alas, resting about ten feet away from him were what appeared to be a series of large alloyed crates stacked onto each other, rising up to a total of nine feet. Now _this _looked like a good starting point, if anything else. A clever idea brewing within the confines of his ever-scheming brain, Eddy hopped onto the highest-reaching crate with the help of his Space Jump Boots and began to formulate his genius plan.

…And in less than a minute, Eddy had the whole maneuver mapped out in his head, and was ready to execute it quite deftly. Now, this was going to be quite tricky and acrobatically demanding, but, if anything else, it was going to look pretty darn cool if he did it correctly.

_And that's what counts!_ he thought to himself with a snide grin etched upon his face – he was pretty confident that he would pull the stunt off with quite a bit of finesse. _Oh yeah, here I go! Just hope I don't fall on my face…_

After taking a deep breath, Eddy, as discreetly as he could, jumped off of the crates and straight toward the rocky chamber wall, whereupon he immediately planted one foot on the surface and, as quickly as he could, pivoted that foot about one-hundred eighty degrees, rotating his body so that it was facing the ground – from this high vantage point, he was able to get a good look at the area around the upper catwalk. From what he could see within the frame of two seconds, the area was mainly encompassed by sturdy-looking walls of rock and ore – nothing special about that, of course – but the focal point of the view was the massive, lustrous device hanging from the chamber's ceiling. The thing looked something like a military-grade artillery cannon, from what he could see, and would probably be something that would pique the interest of someone like Ed. To Eddy, though, its purpose was already defined…

_Hey, that'll work! _thought Eddy as he made his second and most crucial move. Using his other foot immediately after pivoting the first one, he thrust himself off of the wall and upward toward the catwalk, though there was no way he would have been able to clear the distance – the Space Jump Boots _had_ allowed for multiple consecutive jumps, but covering _that_ span was simply out of the question. Instead, he whipped out his left arm, and in doing so, activated his Grapple Beam module for the first time. A split second after doing so, an azure beam of light immediately snaked out from the metallic tube on his left forearm in all of its radiant glory, wrapping itself around the massive gun-thing hanging threateningly from the ceiling. Finally, with a swift flick of the wrist, he yanked himself up onto the catwalk like a human yo-yo, his trusty boots clanking onto the metallic surface just soft enough to avoid the Space Pirates' detection.

And with that, Eddy suavely brushed off his shirt and coolly snapped his fingers in celebration – it had just been confirmed: he was just too cool for words…or school, for that matter. He always knew it to be true!

"Yeah, I'm the man with the plan!" boasted the egocentric kid as he envisioned himself standing before a clapping and thoroughly wowed audience. His ego points had definitely increased, and his head had figuratively swelled to a record size, that was for sure.

Eventually ending his session of self-praise, he once again began the rather monotonous process of surveying his immediate surroundings…again, something that Edd would enjoy a lot more than he did. From what he could discern, there was an array of computer terminals stationed at one end of the catwalk, and a darkened pathway eventually leading into a cave at the other…really, how lost could he possibly have gotten in one day? Shrugging and dismissing the nerd-fest computers as thoroughly "whack" after the previous experience, as well as finding absolutely no use for that mother of an artillery cannon stationed just above his position, he casually waltzed toward the genuinely "inviting" cave entrance, hoping to make some decent progress before the day was out...though the lack of windows _did_ make it quite difficult to discern the current time, and of _course_ he had forgotten to bring his watch along.

"Well, no Space Pirates up here," yawned Eddy, his eyes half-masked due to his increasing weariness – in truth, his adrenaline supply was running quite low at that point, and he was starting to juggle the possibility of taking a quick nap in the first safe area he could find…though there was hardly a chance of locating a "safe" place in _this_ kind of complex. He remembered that he and his friends had woken up quite early in order to initiate that Ed-to-Go scam of his, and the prospect of potentially pulling it off had kept him up the previous night – hence, he could have really gone for some shut-eye. "Man, I would give a quarter for a nap right now. What's a guy gotta do to find a couch around here, anyw…_uh!_"

All things considered, it was definitely a good thing that he had caught himself at that point, for he had only taken a few steps into the desolate, dank cave before finding himself teetering on the foreboding edge of a fifty-foot chute leading downward into the very depths of the complex. He could not possibly hazard a guess, but whatever the heck was down there, Eddy did _not_ want to find out what it was first hand, that much was certain. He decided that he had had enough surprises for one day.

"Man, _that_ was close," he remarked with a tremendous sigh of relief, wiping the newly-formed sweat off of his weary brow. Of course, _he _of all people should have realized that nearly anyone who had ever muttered something along the lines of "that was close!" had always been treated to a stroke of terrible luck followed by a generous helping of discomfort and woe. And, unsurprisingly, such was the case here: without warning, the ground beneath Eddy's feet had begun to quake quite sporadically, the sudden tremors nearly knocking him off-balance in an instant. The quaking, of course, had also caused a chain-reaction within the vicinity, and thus a series of sizeable rocks and boulders had begun to collapse behind him, effectively sealing off the pathway from which he came...and this was only the _beginning_ of the bad luck.

"Hey, _hey!"_ shouted Eddy amidst the grueling and disorienting trembling, swinging his arms in circles as his body practically begged to fall down the intimidating and death-ensuring chute before him – one thing was for sure: gravity was _not _on his side! "Stop shaking, stupid ground! _Hey! Whoa…whoa…aaagh!_"

Unfortunately, his attempts at retaining his balance had ultimately proved futile, and with one final shout of frustration and panic, Eddy toppled over and plummeted down the tunnel and into a realm of solid blackness.

Maybe that "nap" wasn't so far off, after all…

* * *

Nothing was more satisfying to a young man such as Edd than the very sound of progress…the very feeling that one has conquered the limits imposed on him thanks to ingenuity and resourcefulness. Of course, the rhythmic groaning of his metallic boots on the cracked, crusty earth had become quite tiresome after a half-hour's worth of perpetual travel, and though he had been a tad skeptical at first, Edd could truly say that, after spending more than enough time beneath the planet's surface, the depths of Magmoor were just as treacherous as their carnal name had suggested…though that did not mean that they were any less intriguing.

"While not as eye-opening as the archaic ruins of the Chozo cities," mused Edd, his hardy Varia Suit continuing to drive off the cumbersome temperatures that constantly attempted to fatigue him. "I must confess that Magmoor's intrinsic tunnels are quite fascinating! To think that someone had the willpower to carve such vast routes and pathways out of sheer earth, and under such dangerous conditions, too. I hesitate to think that the Chozo may have had the fortitude to establish a permanent residence down here, but then again, you never know…"

His almost comedic habit of talking to himself gradually worsening, Edd stepped across the threshold at the end of the narrow pathway he had been traversing and into a chamber of truly colossal proportions, one that he had to spend a minute or so taking in. Roughly comparable in size to an Olympic swimming gym, the area, graced with the presence of the maroon-clouded Tallon sky, housed a pool of magma of gargantuan size, roughly fifty feet wide and long, bordered by about ten feet of solid, darkened ground on all sides. While the entire vicinity was truly a spectacle to behold, the real wonder was the massive, fifty-foot-tall, rock-composed structure jutting out from the very center of the magma pool, comparable in size to a city-grade apartment building. From what Edd could see, the monolith had two distinct "levels", one located on ground-level and the other about twenty feet above it...actually, it _did _sort of resemble a wall-less, earthen apartment building. What was more, it appeared that a bridge extended from the shorelines on the north side of the room all the way to the first "floor" of the multi-structured rock, something that Edd was all to eager to take advantage of.

Something seemed quite strange about the formation, though, and Edd could not quite put his finger on what it was…

"While this is an _incredible_ example of a natural geological formation," started Edd, squinting his eyes as he slowly approached the edge of the lava-pool, his metallic boots _crunch-_ing against the toughened soil as he went. "It seems a bit too…well, I'd have to get a closer look to reaffirm my hypothesis, so I'll ju-"

_Ka-pow!_

A noise reminiscent of a gunshot sounded within the vast chamber, resonating from a source located far off into the distance…more precisely, it seemed to have originated in the general direction of the massive rock formation in the center of the room. Instinctively, Edd quickly spun around and glanced at the general area only to see an electric-white ball of plasma energy speed through the air and zoom past his head, missing him by only a foot. It was far too fast for Edd to analyze, but whatever that energy blast was, Edd knew this: he had just been shot at…and he needed to hightail it out of there!

"_Gah!_" yelped Edd in shock, nearly jumping out of his Space Jump Boots just moments after hearing the blast connect with the jagged, rocky wall behind him. "Oh dear, I need to find shelter!" His analytical eyes darted around as quickly as they could, hoping to find some sort of cover within this blasted – yet particularly eye-catching – mausoleum of magma. Luckily for him, a series of conveniently-positioned metallic crates, each about the size of a fish-tank, was lying just ten feet to his left, and, upon catching sight of this golden opportunity, the boy dove straight for cover, using the extra boost from his gravity-defying boots to propel him to safety just before being struck by two more energy blasts.

His heart a-race, Edd attempted to calm himself down as he ever-so-slowly peeked over one of the crates, taking care not to expose his head too much for fear that a keen-eyed intergalactic sniper of some sort had spotted him…though that _was_ a bit of a stretch, coming from Edd. From what he could discern, the blasts had indeed originated from the monolith located about thirty feet away from his position, and after squinting his eyes a tad and adjusting his visor, he thought he could make out the source of the shots. Stationed at three different points on the central monolith, hanging from the ceiling of the first "floor", were what appeared to be automated turret guns – though he could not accurately determine their true functionality and because he would not have had time to give them a quick looking-at with his Scan module, Edd knew that they were most likely motion-sensitive and had probably detected his presence soon after he had entered the chamber.

"Drat! Of all the rotten…" grumbled Edd as he ducked back down behind the crates, contemplating his next course of action, and whatever _that_ was going to be, it needed to be a wise move. He realized that he probably would not have had time to take aim before his targets opened fire on his position, so the Power Beam module was out of the question – the turrets' reaction times were extraordinarily quick. "I suppose I'll have to figure out another way to disable those blasted turrets…"

Of course, being a young man of keen intellect, it was no surprise that he had quickly figured out an effective solution to his dilemma, as signified by the slight grin that formed upon his face.

_Alright now…one…two…_

Edd's movements were swift and precise: without a moment's hesitation, he propped himself onto his knees, dangerously exposing the upper third of his body to enemy fire as he pointed his arm cannon toward the general area of the monolith. Knowing that he had absolutely no time to take careful aim, he simply fired two missiles in quick succession and immediately dropped down behind the crates once more, deftly avoiding a flurry of blasts slung by the precise turret guns.

_Ka-crashhh!_

"Yes!" whispered Edd in excitement as he clutched onto his chest, trying to slow the beating of his racing heart – the faint sound of a single explosion had signaled the destruction of _one_ of the turrets, meaning that both missiles must have made contact with the same target. It was true that he could not take aim properly, but the homing properties of his missiles would no doubt take care of _that_ handicap. "Alright…now for the other two…let's hope my reflexes are in sha-"

_Ka-booom!_

With a violent, unexpected force, the three crates that Edd had been using for shelter had suddenly erupted in one large, concussive explosion, sending the boy hurtling backward about nine feet, just short of a potentially lethal collision with the jagged wall. The turret guns must have realized that he had been hiding behind the crates, so they saw fit to destroy them and blow his cover…quite literally, in fact. Showing off his improved dexterity, however, Edd landed safely on his feet, but staggered a bit and fell to one knee, fighting off the effects of slight shock as he quickly devised another scheme within his mind.

_Oh dear…I honestly didn't see that coming…! _he thought to himself as he rubbed his aching head with one eye tightly closed – he was starting to lose the war against that eventual headache, it seemed. Before he could continue formulating his plans, however, a wave of panic immediately struck as he realized his perilous predicament. _Oh no…the turrets! I'm exposed!_

Eddward was certainly not looking forward to being turned into Swiss cheese!

Addressing his desire to retain his human form, he immediately fired a single missile toward the general direction of the monolith, not having time to take aim or fire another one due to the speedy volley of energy blasts that was being sent his way. With no suitable place to hide, the boy had become a fair piece of target practice for the dreadful defense droids! Luckily, his desperate projectile had successfully connected with one of the turrets, its mechanical form completely engulfed in a blinding white flash.

_Yes, one more! Just one more!_

Momentarily pausing to ensure a fair amount of accuracy, Edd once again swiftly turned his arm cannon toward the general area of the last turret gun and fired two more missiles in quick succession, hoping that they would center in on his final target. However, before he could take off again, he felt a painful wave of electric energy collide into his stomach, temporarily blinding him and causing his body lurch backward violently. His limbs gone temporarily numb and his visor momentarily going berserk, Edd fell on his back, feeling his consciousness slowly slip away. However, his fight to stay awake had proved fruitful, and he raised his head just in time to witness his two missiles connecting with the final turret, scrapping it in yet another spectacular flash.

_That…that was…unpleasant…_

Apparently, before Edd's missiles had connected, the final turret had eeked out one accurate shot that had connected with the boy's stomach. Luckily, his Varia Suit had protected him from any lasting damage, though regardless of that, Edd had to admit that being hit by such an attack was not the most pleasant experience imaginable.

"Well, thank goodness for _that_…" panted Edd as he brushed off his Varia Suit, examining his stomach area where he had been shot, thankfully noticing no permanent damage whatsoever. "Quite resilient, if I do say so myself…nevertheless, let's avoid being pummeled with bullets comprised of _raw electric energy_ from now on, shall we?"

With _that _ordeal but a thing of the past (and rightfully so), Edd returned to his duties at hand and consequently strolled over to the giant monolith by the lava shore, crossing the metallic bridge and stepping onto the monument's lower floor. Now, there was not much to see on this first level from what Edd could see, and so he made it a point to reach the second level, hoping that there was something worthwhile to be discovered there instead. With no Chozo lore or testaments to Tallon IV's history, the Magmoor Caverns were scoring quite low on the "interest" ratings.

Noticing a sizeable opening in the rock ceiling about ten feet above him, Edd pondered for a bit and eventually decided to put his trusty Grapple Beam to use. With a quick flick of the wrist, the beam snaked its way out of the projector on his arm and grappled onto the rough ceiling of the upper floor, whereupon Edd yanked himself up in true yo-yo fashion, landing safely on the second floor and retracting his grappler back into its projector "sheathe."

"There we go…" murmured Edd, quite liking the convenience that his modules were bringing him – honestly, he felt as if he were going through the caverns of Magmoor much more quickly and smoothly than the Chozo Ruins, though nothing could compete with his swift trek through the Tallon Overworld…now if _that_ wasn't speedy, he did not know what was. "Now, let's see here…oh, this looks interesting, indeed!"

Truly, the second level of the monolith did appear to be a lot more intriguing than the first, although there was definitely something quite peculiar about it…and that manifested itself in the form of a series of large, translucent, magma-filled tubes stretching upward and through the room, originating from the lava pools beneath the monolith - also strange were the series of mysterious computer clusters located in the general area. Now, the magma-tubes were indeed strange due to the fact that they looked _quite _industrial compared to the Chozo-constructed objects that he had been seeing for a while. Then again, the terminals were equally odd, mainly because, quite frankly, they looked _just like _the ones that Edd and his friends had seen back on the _Orpheon_!

"What in the world…?" puzzled a curious Edd as he eyed the turquoise-screened, flickering monitors quizzically, hardly believing their presence within such treacherous caverns. "Computers? _Here_, of all places? But…well, there goes my hypothesis of a possible Chozo settlement in Magmoor…so, if the Chozo did _not_ construct all that I've seen within these caverns, then…who in their right mind _did_ industrialize this area?"

And that was when it had hit him…that gut feeling that something very questionable was happening not only within the caverns of Magmoor, but on Tallon IV as a whole. He had experienced that gut-wrenching feeling before, sure, but _this_ time it was much more severe.

"Could it be…? Could the…" stammered Edd, not wanting to believe what he _thought _might have been the case. It had to have been a coincidence…it just _had_ to! "No, no, no… Why would the…the _Space Pirates_ want to colonize Magmoor? Oh, this is just preposterous…get a hold of yourself, Eddward! There is just _no way _that the Space Pirates could have established a base of operations on Tallon IV! They were annihilated with the remains of the _Orpheon! _It is impossible! _Ridiculous, even_!"

Rubbing his temples so as to reduce the overwhelming stress, Edd practically had to force himself to calm down, having nearly lost his capacity for rational thought at the mere suggestion of the presence of those monsters on Tallon IV. Still, his curiosity was as insatiable as ever, and thus, when he had thoroughly relaxed himself, he could not help but tap into his trusty Scan Visor and give one of those terminals a quick run-down. His jaw slightly a-tremble and a droplet of sweat sluggishly creeping down the side of his face from under his black beanie, he prodded the corner of his visor until he was once again visited by an array of text, translated into English for his eager eyes to read:

_Local crystal formations possess low Phazon residue. They do have high value to the monks of Grondheim, however. Recommend processing of crystal for that market once Phazon operations cease._

Though he had entered the reading process with an innumerable amount of theories in mind, for the first time in his scanning and interpreting career, Edd had no idea what to make of such data. Certainly the 'monks of Grondheim' meant little to his current ordeal, as did the hypothetical crystal formations mentioned within the passage, so he disregarded those tidbits. However, something did seem grievously disconcerting about the message…

"Alright…so this data makes a special point of addressing something known to the encoder as…'Phazon'," muttered Edd, bewildered yet ever-quizzical as he continued his careful dissection of the message. "'_once Phazon operations cease_'… Oh dear. If I'm correct in my assumptions that the Space Pirates may have established a temporary base here on Tallon IV, then _this _means that they are most likely working with something or someone known to them as 'Phazon.' Now, in all my years of scientific research and pontification, I have never once stumbled upon such a bizarre term…but this certainly is thought-provoking…"

Thus, pondering the connection between the Space Pirates and the mystery-enshrouded 'Phazon' had quickly become a priority in Edd's analytical mind, and though it was a heavily interesting matter, it did not deter him from his primary task of finding his way through the hostile caverns of Magmoor. Much to his fortune, he noticed a bridge extending outward from the floor on which he was situated, eventually leading to another cave that probably led deeper into the caverns. Tossing about the data within his mind, he subconsciously followed the bridge and, without a moment's consideration for his surroundings, entered the cave. Even though the pathway apparently lacked illumination and eventually segued into total darkness, Edd was far too enraptured in his thoughts to notice any of it.

_Though my initial doubts do remain, I must consider the possibility that the Space Pirates have established a base of operations on this planet. This assumption is supported due to the striking similarities between the industrial areas of Magmoor and the interior of the Orpheon, which was also constructed by the Pirates. What's more, these Pirates seem to be experimenting or somehow using something known as Phazon, the properties of which I've yet to discover. As for the purpose of such experimentations… _

Edd had to bite his lower lip in order to enter that extra-deep realm of thought, and so, still unaware of his surroundings, he continued his musings.

_Could these 'Phazon operations' have anything to do with the Parasite Queen specimens we three had seen on that same frigate? Given the fact that the Pirates had clearly lost control of the ship due to the behavior of those insatiable creatures, I can safely assume that they were definitely performing some sort of experimentation – perhaps this was only a small part of said 'Phazon operations!' Perhaps the Pirates had used this 'Phazon' in order to evoke some sort of change in those creatures… Then again, until I can determine the true properties of this Phazon subject…I can't make any solid claims…_

"…Oh, what have we here?"

Feeling a bit of a slight jolt, Edd felt himself warped back into the mundane reality in which he normally existed, and at quite the convenient moment, too – apparently, in his trance-like state of deep thought, he had wandered into yet another sizeable vicinity, although this one was obviously much more compact than the previous ones. Now, he was getting a bit weary of being surrounded by uninteresting, rocky cave walls, though this room did manage to lift his spirits quite substantially, for before him rested yet another one of the godsend, Chozo-crafted, metallic elevators that he had encountered before, though he was quite unfamiliar with this particular one. Of course, in keeping with tradition, there appeared to be a tall, totem-like object positioned just beside it, and from what Edd could remember, this device, when analyzed with the Scan module, was used to activate the elevator.

From Edd's perspective, the whole area seemed to be bathed in a heavenly light – the elevator was truly blessing after such difficult travels, for sure!

"Oh, thank heavens," sighed Edd in immense relief, sensing that his short-but-felt-long trek through the depths of Magmoor was about to come to an unprecedented conclusion. Frankly, he did not really care where the heavenly lift would take him, as long as it was a lot less dismal and much more moderate in temperature. Incredibly eager to get a move on, Edd quickly tapped the side of his visor and immediately scanned the totem-object located near the elevator. "Having found no sign of either Ed or Eddy within Magmoor, I'm pretty certain that I can take leave of this treacherous region in order to search for them in other, more _pleasant_ locales."

_Access to Phendrana Drifts granted. Please step onto the elevator._

And thus, after a grueling wait of five seconds, the mechanized, alien elevator whirred into life, ready to head out and patiently awaiting Edd's company. Edd, eager to join the generous lift in its journey throughout the planet, complied with the totem's orders and took his usual spot in the center of the elevator, waiting for it to begin its ascent…or descent, if there were actually regions located even _deeper _than Magmoor.

Thus, with a slight shrug, Edd turned his ever-humming mind to the future as he began to predict the trials that awaited him in the next region. "So it seems I'm heading to the 'Phendrana Drifts' as indicated by that oh-so-generous totem…" muttered Edd quietly to himself as he reached behind his visor and rubbed his eyes one at a time with his gloved hand, stifling a yawn as he did so. He could definitely feel the gentle waves of sleep approaching with every passing second…what he would give to sleep in his own bed once more. His consciousness slowly faded with each tick-tock of universal grandfather clock…

"Well…judging by what I know…the term 'drifts' usually tends to signify…low-temperature regions with…with…oh, y'know…" His eyes already shut behind his green-hued visor, Edd began to sway to and fro, his words slurring as he felt the last remnants of consciousness slip away from his grasp. "Regions with…my friends…perhaps? Yes…that sounds…dandy…quite dandy indeed…"

And as the elevator slowly began its gradual ascent, a vast tsunami of exhaustion completely overtook the weary Edd, causing the boy to fall flat on his back, his semi-metallic Varia Suit _clank_ing against the cold, metallic surface. Not even the anxiety normally caused by the prospects of entering a whole new region would have woken him up at that point – he had experienced quite a few things in this day, for sure, and was ready to answer those experiences with a well-deserved nap.

And perhaps, when he woke up, he'd be one step closer to finding the connection between the mysterious links he had uncovered…and maybe, he'd be one step closer to finding his fellow Eds.

But it was hard to dream…when all the things he had seen that day were already so indescribable…

* * *

"One, two, buckle my shoe…"

Trapped within the echoic, desolate caverns eternally sealed beneath the expansive, distant tundra regions of Tallon IV…

"Three, four, shut the door…

The courage of one individual burned with a ferocious radiance that surpassed the luminosity of the brightest stars in the universe…his adamant determination to challenge the absolute whims of nature rattled the foundations of the heavens and caused the very earth to tremble beneath his ice-tipped fingers…

"Five, six, meat really stinks…"

…His desire to defeat the most sinister of apparitions…the disruptor of tranquility…the duke of dastardly deeds…his desire to prevail corroded all that was evil…

"Seven, eight…"

…For he was the interstellar hunter of malevolence…the universal bringer of peace…the resolute mailman of destiny…the outlaw of justice!

"…hug a chicken!"

Thus, with an Olympian entrance deserving of eternal praise and wonder, the ever-gallant Ed made his appearance, practically hurling himself atop of the snow-blanketed cliff with an ever-impressive front-flip, completing his heroic ascent! True, the surly boy had accomplished much in his day, but _this_ was surely a moment for celebration! He had conquered the most insurmountable of odds, cast off all doubt, and had proven his colossal and unshakable might by…scaling a seven-foot wall of snow.

"The brave Space Outlaw has defeated the evil Wall of Snow, and with the help of his new ally, Russell!" Ed turned his gaze to his newly-named arm cannon and cracked an appreciative grin. "Hello, Russell!"

Without a doubt, Ed was besting the vile snow two-to-one in this contest of…wits? With a pompous expression glazed upon his visage, he placed his left hand on his hip and his arm cannon on the other, assuming a gallant, victorious pose worthy of artistic engraving. In truth, anyone would have had the ability to climb a wall covered in easy-to-grab-onto snow, but Ed's grandiose narrations were surely turning a dire situation into an adventure of a lifetime.

"And now, the Space Outlaw and his faithful companion begin to look for the evil space mutant, who has retreated into its vile lair deep within…the _cave…_" narrated Ed as he turned his attention to the garage-sized, stone-walled cave that had practically opened its gaping maw before him – apparently, the strange silhouette he had seen before had retreated into that area, but was nowhere to be found within its sizeable interior…at least, from what Ed could see.

However, at the far end of the snow-carpeted cave rested a single automated door crafted of what appeared to be the finest of steels. Ah, but of course…the malignant monster must have made its escape therein! And where there were perpetrators of peace, there was always justice to be dealt!

"Ho _ho_, you cannot escape from Ed!" bellowed the boy in his signature dramatic voice as he practically galloped down the pathway with the intention of ramming the door down with his head – in all honesty, none could remember a time when he had ever gone through one normally. "Prepare to be terminated, solar scum! I am here t-"

Ed's courageous, if foolhardy, rush into and through the ominous cave was instantly interrupted when a shadow-cloaked figure of at least two-hundred pounds dropped down from above and onto his jacketed shoulders, violently planting the boy face-first into the frigid powder. Though he had hardly seen it coming, Ed did not even have to think twice to realize that he had been attacked by his mysterious enemy!

_Graaaaack!_

…And he did not even have to look upward to realize that his attacker was indeed a Space Pirate, as he had initially predicted!

"_Mmmph rmph muff mffooo!_" bellowed Ed in a snow-muted voice, his head halfway buried into the white carpet as he desperately struggled to stand up, but the hefty Space Pirate simply stood firm on the boy's upper back, effectively preventing him from doing anything of the sort. When Ed had seemingly exhausted all attempts to break free, the Pirate, no doubt taking advantage of its opportune position, grabbed onto Ed's left arm with both of its skeletal, scaly hands, then proceeded to step off of his back. Then, demonstrating its immense primal strength, the alien assassin hurled Ed toward the stone-black wall at the far end of the cave.

However, the gallivanting galoot had yet to show his opponent his true abilities, and thus performed an amazing feat of inertia by using his Space Jump Boots to right himself in mid-air, bending gravity to his will and allowing him to safely plant his feet into the snow before colliding with the far wall. With a bright, smiling, courageous expression etched upon his chinless face, Ed turned around and pointed at the impressed Space Pirate, probably not even noticing that his azure, rope-like Grapple Beam was wrapped around the Space Pirate's two wrists, rendering it totally helpless - Ed had subconsciously released his Grapple Beam when the Pirate grabbed a hold of his arm, and with the metallic, tube-like projector still attached to his left jacket sleeve, he had the alien wrapped up in what could be called the "perfect lasso."

"I see you, demon of the netherworld, vicious predator of plaque!" bellowed the boy, acting out his quasi-heroic role quite flawlessly. "You will be terminated, or my name isn't…uh…hmmm…" Despite immersing himself in deep thought as he tried to remember his given name, Ed violently tugged back on his own left arm, inadvertently turning the Space Pirate into a living yo-yo and causing it to fly forward through the air, eventually smashing into the wall just beside Ed with a gut-wrenching _ker-crash!_

No doubt concussed, the monster fell flat on its hunched back and into the foot-high blanket of snow that decorated the cave floor.

"Oh, it is _Ed! _Ah-yup…that's it… Aw, it is sleeping!" remarked Ed, falling temporarily out of his semi-imaginary role as he trotted toward the Space Pirate's head, peering down at it curiously – there was no way that he could have resisted seeing an incapacitated alien creature up close, that was for sure. He could definitely see that it was extremely ugly up close, clearly resembling a mix between a lizard and…well, some sort of primate. Also, its stale breath smelled of a mixture of bad fish and spoiled cheese, and thus Ed could tell that this alien had pretty good taste (then again, one could say that Ed's favorite food combinations were quite otherworldly themselves). "Oh, look! It is twitching…the little dickens…" blabbered the boy in awe, poking the Pirate on the head several times.

Before the eleventh poke could make contact, however, the Pirate had suddenly regained consciousness and instantly flipped its body around so that it was resting on its stomach-end. Then, without a moment's hesitation, the marauder pounced straight at Ed's face like a wild beast. Only a tad surprised despite the suddenness of the attack, Ed was able to duck in time, and as a result, the Pirate simply went sailing over the boy's buzz-cut head. The Pirate's reflexes were appropriately keen, however, and thus it was able to land perfectly on its feet – Ed, on the other hand, was not so fortunate, for instead he lost his balance and fell flat on his back, defenseless and prone to a coup d'etat!

Realizing this opportunity, the Pirate swiftly turned around and raised its gleaming, vermillion arm-blade high above its head, preparing to deliver the killing blow and end the confrontation. However, when it looked down at its seemingly hapless Earthling victim, it noticed that Ed was staring right back at it, upside down and on his back…with his arm cannon pointed directly at the creature's face.

"_Gaaaaah_!" gargled Ed bombastically as he quickly fired two missiles straight at the Space Pirate from about a foot away, guaranteeing an instant victory. For sure, the two concussive shots struck the beast simultaneously, the dual explosions sending it careening through the air, out the cave entrance, off of the presiding cliff, and down into the massive caverns below. For all intents and purposes, the thing was not going to show its repulsive face again…well, as far as Ed could tell, of course.

"Justice has triumphed, and the universe is saved!" announced Ed, his signature low-key voice echoing off of the cave walls as he slowly rose to his feet and raised his arm cannon into the air in celebration. His face filled with glee, he could not help but look upward at his weapon and nod in thanks. "Thank you, Herbert, my trustworthy companion!"

_Whzzz-shiiiing!_

Ed _had_ been about to prance about in celebration with the intent of repeatedly mumbling "oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!" in order to pass the time, but the sudden and quite unusual sound that had come from behind him had been an ample substitute. Turning around to find the source of the surprising sound, he saw that the automated door that he had attempted to ram down had apparently activated and opened itself for him. Though this was incredibly fortunate and probably would have saved him the torment of an aching skull, Ed could not see anything beyond the door except for a wall of pure blackness. Apparently, the chambers that lay beyond that portal were not very well-lit, or Ed's eyesight was failing on him…or maybe his visor was going berserk?

"Oh, look! A closet!" remarked Ed as he approached the doorway and peered through, attempting discover the contents of the room beyond, but with no luck. Still, a bit of darkness was not about to scare off Ed: Space Outlaw, Defender of Planet Earth, no sir! "Whoa…maybe they have Chunky Puffs! Oh boy, oh boy!"

With a spring in his step and his trusty arm cannon Russell (or Herbert) by his side, Ed defied the odds and brushed away all rational thought as he stepped across the threshold and into the darkness that lay before him. Frankly, he did not know what to expect and had no logical guesses as to what have been in store for him…but Ed was never one to think ahead, anyway. He was always the kind of guy who took life as it came and never complained, no matter what the circumstances or scenario.

And so he probably did not mind when the automated door instantly closed and locked itself…mere moments after he had passed through it…mere moments after he had passed into the brooding darkness…

_Whizzz-shiiiing!_


	10. Winter in Phendrana

_**Chapter Ten**_

_**Winter in Phendrana**_

…_Why does it feel like my mattress has been transfigured into steel?_

Edd was a pre-teenager with standards, and this was the result of living in a very lavish house in a humble North American cul-de-sac for most of his life. Naturally, he of all people knew what comfort was like.

Comfort was an overstuffed leather sofa, a pair of fluffy rabbit slippers, and a piping-hot cup of cocoa on a cool autumn morning (though he often preferred his cooled for five minutes and decorated with mini-marshmallows – he was often seen as an odd sort for this). Comfort was his sanctuary, his multi-layered bed at 6:00AM on a Sunday morning, an hour before his designated wake-up time. Comfort was the feeling that he had one more hour to relish in his only given chance to lie about, safe within the well-insulated walls of his own home, knowing that Ed and Eddy would not come knocking for another hour or two.

So, given this stratospheric criteria, the question was this: was Edd truly experiencing such feelings at the moment?

No. The kid felt like a turkey accumulating frost inside of a freezer.

_…How long have I been asleep on this rusty elevator?!_

With a resounding yawn, Edd decided to take his time as he rose to his feet, his stiffened joints cracking, snapping, and popping back into place after being rendered in such uncomfortable positions. Silently vowing that he would never again fall asleep in a place without reasonable access to a bed with a labeled headboard, he shook his head side to side quickly in an attempt to wake up a tad more, but as he did so, he came to notice that he had very little feeling in his cheeks, or the rest of his face, for that matter.

"Curious...perhaps my Varia Suit is having some difficulty adjusting to the extreme shift in temperature?" mumbled Edd through cooled lips as he brushed the accumulated frost off of his lustrous outfit, his breath crystallizing in the atmosphere and slightly fogging up his visor. He recalled that he had taken an automated elevator from the molten caverns of the Magmoor region to an area that was previously indicated as the "Phendrana Drifts", thus the change in temperature was not that hard to imagine.

Though as he began to move down the snow-decorated tunnel that opened up before him, he found that his body had begun to warm up to a much more comfortable temperature, giving him the sensation that, instead of traversing down a frosted cavern to the frigid plains of oblivion, he was passing through a warm living room, dressed in his one-piece pajamas. "There we go! A much more _reasonable _configuration, if I do say so myself. Now if only I had remembered to pack my earmuffs…"

The frosted tunnel was spacious and winding, but Edd was feeling a bit too jolly to criticize the geography, for his nap, however long it must have been, had somewhat restored his sense of humor and had caused him to attain a more lighthearted outlook on his ordeal. Instead of scoffing at the jutting sheets of ice that nearly blocked his path, he grinned at their natural beauty and simply shuffled his way around them; perhaps his good mood was to be short-lived, but at least he was making the best of things. Hopefully Ed and Eddy were having likewise positive outlooks on their own predicaments, wherever on Tallon IV they happened to be.

Oh, if only he had known.

"Strange , isn't it, how there seems to be an intentionally-designed elevator system installed within the various regions of this planet?" mused Edd, turning his mind to other matters as he reached the end of the tunnel, where a blinding light seemed to be beckoning him forth. "And how they all seem to be connected? A forest connected to a ruins site connected to a cavern network connected to what may just be a winter wonderland... It would probably take me a week or two to travel on foot from the rainforest region of the planet to the ruins, but this system is sort of like a planetary subway, and seems to be much more convenient… I would be thrilled to study the nature of these mechanisms, but unfortunately I have more pressing matters at…hand…well, look at that! What a pleasant change of pace after that positively treacherous magma romp!"

A winter wonderland, indeed; the winding tunnel had led the wayward suburban denizen into a peaceful vale of mountainous whites and sky-blues; a lazy river slowly wound through the tranquil area, flanked by large, carpeted expanses of knee-deep, sticky snow (the kind perfectly suited to craft snowballs and snow-forts, as any suburbanite would know), set against a glorious backdrop of high-rising, mountainous walls and jagged cliffs, each freckled with a number of caves and entrances to tunnel networks. A number of thin plateaus stuck out in the clearing like trees in an expansive yard, each clothed in hats of powdery white and reaching for the overcast alien sky. One oddity that Edd noticed was that near the cliffs there happened to be large platforms capped with snow floating in mid-air, kept in that state by rocket propellers installed by who-knows-who…

A pinch of technology never hurt anyone, Edd supposed.

With flakes of snow continually flickering down from the cloud-grey precipice above, the picturesque clearing put Edd at ease and vaguely reminded him of the solace of wintertime in Peach Creek; all that was missing was a snowman or two, and perhaps a few Christmas decorations, not to mention Rolf's horrendous, meat-adorned abode…but he preferred not to think about _that_ aspect of Yuletide.

"Well, it seems I've stumbled across Santa Claus' very own backyard!" chuckled Edd, not the first to make a reference to Saint Nick, as he waded through the freshly-fallen snow, the white powder latching onto his lustrous Space Jump Boots and temperature-regulating coat as he romped. "Haha…I couldn't resist. But it _is_ a pleasant change of scenery. I'm already starting to take a liking to this Phendrana region…"

He approached the riverbank and peered as his own reflection, the image contorted humorously by the easygoing currents; he eventually averted his gaze to the cloud-blanketed sky reflected in the lazy waves, dotted with quickly-flying docile avian creatures. Edd then looked ahead, toward the cloud-scraping cliffs in the distance, his stomach filled with tingles of anticipation. "Not to mention the endless possibilities for exploration! Perhaps I could learn a thing or two about the region while I'm here, and who knows? Perhaps I'll stumble upon a clue that'll lead me to Ed and Eddy."

Though the way the region presented itself made the notion of excavation _much_ more exciting than, say, the Chozo Ruins, which _looked_ tantalizing at first, but had eventually proven to be quite hostile to visitors. The worst he could stumble upon here was an army of elves laid-off by Santa's Present Corporation.

Edd looked upward at the leftmost cave on the cliffs, which resided about fifteen feet above ground level. Normally, he would have designated that one as the starting point of his excavation of the area, but something was quite strange about it – from what he could see, there seemed to be a hexagonal, translucent "barrier" blocking the entrance, and by all means it did not look natural in the slightest. Curious, Edd gave the thing a long-distance run-down with his visor and found that he was correct in assuming that it was a barrier, but he was surprised to learn that it was of technological origin.

"…Bizarre," muttered the boy, using his visor to trace the electromagnetic current that the barrier seemed to be giving off to its source. His visor displayed the barrier in a shade of light blue, and there appeared to be a long, invisible "cord" that extended off of the cliff and into a ground-level alcove near the mouth of the river, also colored a light blue. Curious, Edd followed the riverbank and ducked into the shady alcove, not sure what to expect.

Well, _this_ was most unusual: at the end of the small grotto, embossed into the slate wall, was a vermillion, translucent computer terminal that seemed to be giving off the same electromagnetic signal as the force-field above.

"The rocket-propelled platforms outside are indeed a marvel," mused Edd, approaching the large, text-ridden touch-screen with a look of curiosity in his eyes. "But to find a database within this seemingly all-natural region is quite unexpected." He prodded the piece a few times with his gloved hand, and a soft _whirr­_ from above told him that he had disabled the force-field.

"Just when I assumed that there was one place on Tallon IV that wasn't riddled with these mechanisms…" commented Edd as he reentered the clearing and looked upward at the cave entrance that rested on the cliff high above him. "It seems that, when it comes to these mysterious regions, there always seems to be more than meets the eye…" He jumped upward, using his Space Jump Boots to propel him about twenty feet into the air, allowing him to land on the high-rising cliff just outside of the cave entrance. The boots were a boon, to be sure, but there was always something about jumping three times higher than the average human should that made him a tad queasy.

Luckily enough for him, the "cave" had proven to be more of an archway than anything, so he did not have to squint his way through yet another dark passage as he had so often done in the ruins and the caverns, and perhaps fate had arranged for it to be so, for the area to follow was _quite_ the intriguing one.

"Oh my…" stammered Edd as he tromped his way through the deep snow, brushing the melted snowflake remnants off of his visor in order to get a better glimpse of the area – and he would have needed a good glimpse, for sure, for this was music to his…eyes. "I think I'm beginning to see a noticeable connection between the various regions of this vast planet."

Edd had initially thought that Phendrana was a region of pure natural bliss, untouched by technological advances or civilization (well, save for the technological part), but his theories had been proven wrong by what he had just stumbled across; that is to say, he was quite a bit surprised to find himself stepping into what appeared to be a square – and not just any square; from the look of things, he seemed to be in a _town_ square, or at least the ruins of one! Large, open constructs that resembled ancient Roman residencies rose up all around him, shackled and ruined by the waves of time. The blanket of snow was thin enough in the center of the locale for Edd to see that beneath the whiteness rested a layer of ornate, age-worn tiles made of brick and some sort of alien concrete. The sky remained inconspicuously cloudy, but there was just enough light to bathe the area in a glorious, retrospective sheen that Edd could not help but think he was standing in the middle of an illustration found in a history book.

"Yes, this is there…and that, too…it meets the requirements, I must say… By Jove, I believe I've stumbled across yet another settlement," stuttered Edd, his excitement nearly causing him to float in the air. "Why, this could be the remnants of an ancient village! And it most probably _is!_ A city, mayhap? Or…or perhaps a ruined marketplace? Oh, this just _warrants_ further study…"

Edd jovially galloped over to the Easternmost building and approached it with a look of awe on his face. It appeared to be about three stories tall and constructed of a myriad of colossal stones of slate, granite, and white hue that he could hardly identify, even with _his_ level of geological knowledge. The entire face of the building seemed to be completely missing, with large, Grecian columns strewn about in pieces all around him, and the interior seemed to be completely packed with snow and rock, so unfortunately he could not excavate the inside. Even his visor could not indicate the exact age of the stones used to build the residence, but he was sure that nearly everything in this area was centuries upon centuries old.

"Absolutely fascinating!" marveled Edd, placing his hand on the grainy outer wall of the looming building, his mind a-race as he pondered what life must have been like when this supposed hub of activity was brand new. "There's little doubt that this area was inhabited by none other than the Chozo themselves, given the similarity between these buildings and the ones I saw at the ruins only hours ago. So they _did_ colonize more than one region of this planet, much like we humans did millennia ago on our own planet…"

He looked around at the other buildings and wished that he had been around to see this architecture in its glory days and witness the wonder of Chozo civilization firsthand. He was a bit torn, of course, for although being in the presence of such marvelous ruins was always an experience, he was saddened knowing that the civilization that constructed them was probably long gone.

_Definitely long gone_, he reminded himself. According to the records he found back at the first ruins site, the Chozo had long since departed the planet after the "cataclysm", and what that "cataclysm" was…well, that was pretty high on Edd's list of 'things to find out.'

"Hmm…well, there don't seem to be any Chozo records left behind other than these derelict buildings and pillars," reasoned Edd as he returned to the square. Unfortunately, he was not exactly an architect, so he could not get much information out of these buildings even if he tried – maybe Rolf's bizarre wisdom could have helped him there, but he would not have bet on it. "But perhaps there are other ruins sites strewn all across Phendrana just waiting to be excavated. I suppose I'll just…"

_Fff-shhhmm…_

_Grrrrr-ggghhh…_

Edd swallowed past the lump in his throat and whirled his head about, nearly crying aloud at the resulting whiplash. His train of thought derailed, he was rightly disoriented, and his about-face was not swift enough to catch a full glimpse of the events behind him.

Teeth. Rows upon rows of salivating, jagged teeth lurching toward his face with the intention of ripping it into ribbon-shreds. Unable to even get a cry of "good Lord" out of his own mouth, Edd instinctively tumbled far to his right, hopefully far away from the teeth…or whatever was behind them. His arm cannon whirled out and pointed at the creature, a radiant orb of energy charging at the mouth of his weapon – to generate a Power Beam shot was already becoming second nature to Edd.

An eyeless, bipedal predator roughly the size and stance of an African rhinoceros met his wary gaze, covered in thick bluish hide and sporting the same set of teeth that Edd had just seen flying at him. On its back rested a defensive dorsal shell constructed of ice and assorted organic skins, probably for survival needs. The Edd of yesterday would have been on his knees in awe and fright of the monster before him; the Edd of now could only see one stand-out characteristic of this tundra predator:

The shell on its back and the weakness it must have concealed. Edd made up his mind; it was do or die. It was the nature of things on this world.

The creature lunged at the boy with wide-open jowls and a mammoth battle-cry, whereupon Edd let loose his charged Power shot directly into its face. Unfazed by the mighty blast, the creature went straight for Edd's throat, but the boy's improved reflexes allowed him to duck and roll away from the death-strike and behind the creature. His brain quickly sorting through an array of endless options, Edd immediately launched two missiles at the monster's dorsal carapace.

The first shot did reasonable concussive damage, but the second one was the killer, and shattered the shell entirely. With this protective carapace annihilated, a sensitive epidermal layer was exposed to the frigid Phendrana atmosphere, whereupon the creature let forth a cry of pain – apparently these things were not entirely adapted to live in this kind of environment, and this was something Edd knew he could exploit. Using this as his chance, Edd generated a bomb and hurled it at the creature's weak point, whereupon it detonated, the concussive energy driving the creature deep into the snow; luckily, it did not move again.

A nerve-shot Edd took a moment to catch his breath, inhaling deeply through his nose and exhaling out of practically every pore on his face. He sat down for a second and surveyed the creature's vital signs and morphology with his scan visor.

_Well, no more mindless rambling coming out of my mouth during confrontation; I'm improving, I suppose,_ thought the pacifist with a defeated sigh. Perhaps the fact that this creature, this "infant Sheegoth", was predatory and wanted to eat him was what gave him the drive to defend himself without hesitation…but he could not deny the reprehensible fact that it was becoming easier and easier to point the barrel at things. That's not the kind of person he was…

…But was it the person he was supposed to become to survive? Maybe. It was a strategy Edd would be all too eager to abandon once he set foot in Peach Creek again.

"I wasn't quite sure at first," stammered Edd, his nerves thoroughly shot and his good mood shackled after what started off as a promising day. "But what say we evacuate the vicinity as soon as possible, shall we? Now, there must be an exit somewhere…" He began inspecting the ruins site warily, in case another monstrous creature decided to up and attack him with gnashing jowls again; he was lucky this time, but maybe fate would not be so kind to him a second time. However, all he found were broken pillars, eroded walls freckled and holed with fragments of blackened stone and ice, and pathways completely sealed off by waterfalls long since frozen. Only when he ventured to the far north side of the site did he find a ledge that rose about ten feet high with a cave entrance situated nearby. With a sigh of relief, Edd eagerly Space-Jumped to the top and worked his way into the nearby tunnel, leaving the ruined square behind.

A cool breeze overtook him as soon as he entered the nearly pitch-black, ice-glazed tunnel. With a gulp in his throat, Edd slowly made his way through, breathing in the crisp, frigid air (such a boon after the suffocating temperatures of Magmoor Oven-world!). As he made his way along the path while keeping his left hand against the cave wall for guidance, he thought he heard a frantic scurrying in the snow, which eventually faded out into a light scratching – he had not seen them, but apparently he had frightened off a small pack of local creatures. Regardless, the sounds nearly caused him to jump out of his boots.

"Gracious…" whispered Edd to himself, shaking with anticipation as he wandered ever deeper into the unknown. "Between alpha beetles, Magmoors, monstrous wasps and Sheegoths, I just can't determine which species to be afraid of! Maybe I should…_woaaah!_"

Obviously unable to tell where he was going, the unfortunate Edd took a wrong step and fell down onto a rather frigid sheet of ice, flat on his face, no less – he had not anticipated the transition from snow to ice, that was for sure. Who could?

"Ugh…why me?" complained poor Edd as he carefully rose to his feet, rubbing his aching nose and checking for loose teeth, acknowledging that today was really not destined to be a grand one despite the positive outset. While looking down, though, something caught the boy's eye…something so attention-grabbing that he could not help but take his hand away from his nose and place it on the ice. Suddenly he was grateful that he had fallen.

What had caught his attention, to be precise, was not the ice itself, but what appeared to be entrapped _within_ it. Frankly, he had never seen anything quite like it: a web of electric blues and sapphire seemed to stretch out all along the expanse of the ice like some sort of psychotically-mutated lichen. He could not exactly tell whether it was a type of plant, but he was certain that it was not a natural occurrence – to be honest, he could not recall the last time he saw a _blue, glowing plant_.

"This is peculiar…" commented a quizzical Eddward as he tapped into his visor as he lowered his face to the ice, hoping to get a clearer look at the partially obscured web-like matter. Unfortunately, his lens could not produce sufficient results and did not know any more about the substance than he already did, but that did not stop Edd from speculating regardless. "What in the world could this substance be? It certainly _looks_ somewhat floral, though I've never heard of purely ice-based plant life before. This can't be natural…is it _alive_? Oh, if only I could somehow get past this nefarious ice sheet…

"…Oh, it appears I _have_ attained some results! Let's see what the scan says…"

Edd's heart skipped a beat upon reading the results.

"…_Radioactive material?_" he blurted out, taken aback by this unexpected data. "Could it be? Now I'm positive that something has gone awry in this region, much like the others, and…oh my word!" His surprise was only furthered upon looking upward to see that the cave ceiling was also splashed with the same blue material! "…This requires further analysis. I'll need to investigate this entire region before making any more assumptions…"

Keeping this organic matter in mind, Edd carefully made his way out of the cave, which fortunately led him back to the familiar, open shoreline area that he had first come across, though at this point he was overlooking the valley from one of the many humble cliff-sides jutting out of the mountainous geographical areas bordering the area. From here he could see that this wintery region expanded far further than he had originally speculated – even far off in the distance he could see, for miles and miles, snow-capped, jagged mountains reaching upward into the cloud-ridden skies. For only a moment the sun seemed to break out of the cloudy haze from behind the mountains, rendering the valley alight with a brilliant glow that, amplified by the pure-white snow, nearly blinded the boy.

Assuming he was looking north, he averted his gaze to the northwest and noticed something quite interesting – far in the distance, sitting snugly within a mountainside probably hundreds of yards away, was a collection of ruinous hand-crafted monuments and wrecked stone pillars, complete with what appeared to be an ornate watchtower or lighthouse rising in the middle of it. Another ruins site, mayhap? A temple, even? Undoubtedly, there was something there.

It just screamed "look at me! I'm hiding a secret!"

"Yes…_yes_, there _are_ more ruined settlements to be found within Phendrana!" cried Edd, his face flushing with excitement as he trotted up the snowy path along the cliff-side until he reached a higher vantage point, from which he could see the entire valley in all of its wintry splendor – never mind the babbling brook that snaked through the location…those ruins looked positively edifying. "Oh, if only I had all the time in the world to excavate their splendor! Hmmm…well, perhaps a small detour wouldn't hurt…but how can I possibly get over there?"

Granted, there seemed to be no easy way to reach that area – the only way to go would be to go back the way he came, or enter the…well, convenient cave that happened to be just behind him. "Perhaps this will lead me around the area, through the mountains, and to that ruins site…" He passed through the opening in the cave wall, which seemed to be not a cave per se, but instead a threshold into a larger area. Devoid of anything but a carpet of snow that thinned toward the middle in order to create a narrow linear path to yet another opening in the cliff wall, Edd passed through this area as well.

And coincidentally enough, here remained even _more _remnants of Chozo architecture in the form of towering pillars leading into yet another ruined mini-settlement, very similar to the one he had passed through before. In fact, this one was almost _identical_ to the one he was in before, albeit it seemed to be a mirrored version. Two Phendrana settlements in one day; Edd felt as if he'd won the lottery.

"The Chozo certainly favored the more mountainous regions, that much is certain," remarked Edd as he romped through the snow, peering into the side of a derelict building that happened to be missing its southernmost wall. "Come to think of it, the Chozo Ruins were quite elevated compared to, say, the rainforest and the caverns. Fascinating! Perhaps they preferred to preside over these lands...like kings."

He stepped into the base of the two-story building and gazed around, staring at the crumbling walls and the ornate steps within. Like before, his scan visor, unfortunately, was not able to give insight on everything he came across, which was indeed disappointing.

But what ultimately caught Edd's wandering eyes was a reoccurring treat: a liquid-covered panel, very similar (or perhaps identical) to the numerous ones he had seen in the Chozo Ruins, rested on the eastern wall of the second floor balcony, and at this point he knew all too well that therein contained ancient records left by the Chozo. A gleam in his eye, he prodded his visor, which promptly deciphered the alien script:

_  
None know if our temple, the Cradle, will prove powerful enough to contain this evil forever. How can we Chozo hope for it to remain intact when that which it guards writhes in the darkness, growing always stronger? The fate of this world rests with the power of the Artifact we call Cipher, but even it is not all-powerful. It is strong, yes: an enchanted whole made of eleven links and one cardinal keystone. Still, it is finite in its reach, and we who guard it are slowly succumbing. When our vigilance crumbles away into madness, the Cipher will be exposed and the fate of Tallon IV will be beyond our influence_.

"So apparently," mused Edd as he rested his chin on his wrist in contemplation. "The Chozo were aware of the 'poison' which had impacted the planet far enough in advance to construct a temple of some sort, which was intended to serve as a barrier to contain its influence…similar to the use of the Great Wall of China against the Mongolians. Very impressive that they were able to construct a temple in such a short span of time, I must admit."

His pondering effectively rendered him unaware of the rousing and shuffling of snow behind him, of course.

"And this 'Cipher' is what was used to imprison the poison," he continued. "Who knows if the temple still stands, though? I'd like to locate it if I have time…"

Edd turned around with the intention of leaving the vicinity and studying the surrounding environment a bit more closely; what he received instead was an eyeful of gnashing Sheegoth jowls.

The next thing he knew, he was outside of the building, his face buried in the snow having dived quite valiantly out of the way, and the infant predator was trying to wrench its head out of the building's wall, like a bull that had missed the matador. Biting his lower lip as his mind raced, he raised his arm cannon and activated his missile launcher, preparing to subdue the creature as quickly as he did the last.

Before the projectiles could fly, however, another set of jowls clamped down onto his arm cannon, and Edd let out a cry of terror at the sight of a _second_ infant Sheegoth! The dastardly, eyeless predator's razor-teeth were unable to penetrate the hardy alloys of the arm cannon, but it was sure doing a heck of a job keeping Edd from wrenching it out of its mandibles. "Urgh, refrain! Abstain! Unhand me…_please_!" But the creature would not listen, nor could it, for the second and final act was about to commence.

Edd's eyes darted toward the building he had just been in and completely froze up upon seeing the first infant Sheegoth barreling toward him like a train, its hungry mandibles wide open like a cavernous chasm of razors. If it were not so frigid, Edd would have been perspiring like one wouldn't believe, but the fact that he was _not_ thinking about taking a shower as a result of such a reaction allowed him ample time to generate a bomb in his left hand and toss it valiantly at the beast's mouth…and sure enough, the behemoth swallowed the orb.

The explosion was instant, and while it did not outwardly destroy the beast, it seemed to have ruptured the entirety of its internal organs, causing it to flop flimsily into the snow, effectively deceased.

"That's _disgusting!_...but effective…" cried Edd as he diverted his attention to the other Sheegoth, which was still clamped onto his weapon. This was a conundrum, and he had to act fast before it forsook the arm cannon and went straight for his face. His mind was quick, however, and thus he immediately began charging up a Power Beam shot – the gradual increase in the weapon's external temperature, due to the charging, irritated the Sheegoth, which promptly loosened its grip on the cannon and reeled back before lunging ferociously at Edd's face.

The boy's body threatened to freeze up, but his mind prevailed, allowing him to deftly roll out of harm's way and end up _behind_ the creature, whereupon he unleashed the blast, rupturing the iced shell upon its back and revealing the organic interior.

Too preoccupied with the pain, the creature was unable to defend itself against the two missile blasts that shortly followed. It fell into the snow, lifeless as the ruined Chozo architecture surrounding it.

And before the snow had a change to settle, Edd was already on his way out of the vicinity.

"I swear, can't one find a single moment of solitude and silence in this forsaken wasteland of a planet, well I never…and surely…that's no excuse for…"

His aggravated muttering never ceased as he pulled himself up onto the roof of another building in the area, and this one in particular seemed to have been built directly into the cliff-side, which meant that the roof led directly onto a cliff-side path that would apparently take him around to the other side of the mountain range. This short walk served no problems, fortunately, and the other side of the mountain offered a truly different change of scenery. He had seen images of such wonders when he was in school perusing geography textbooks in the library, sure, but this was definitely the first time he had stumbled across an actual canyon (a frosted one, no less).

Admittedly, its depths were not as far-reaching as the Grand Canyon's back on Earth, nor its expanse as wide, but to fall off this cliff and into the crevice below would surely be quite devastating…or slippery; the subzero temperatures of Phendrana had glazed the canyon-bowl with a thick sheet of ice in which Edd could see the sky clearly reflected. On the other side of the great divide was another series of mountains, though unfortunately they looked to be far less traversable and far more jagged and treacherous…but there was one alcove within those cliff walls that looked fairly interesting, and thus Edd deemed it worth checking out.

And, lo and behold, his means of reaching the other end were presented to him on a silver platter! A recurring element in these wastes, a series of rocket-propelled, snow-covered platforms of rock provided hovering, mid-air stepping stones leading directly to that alcove; it was as if someone had constructed them just for the sake of leading a wayward wanderer across the trench.

_Look at it this way, Eddward,_ thought Edd to himself, the gut feeling that something was in that far-off alcove weighing out the thought of slipping and plummeting down the canyon. _This will be the first, and perhaps the only time, where you could actually say you've hovered over an open canyon._

His mind made up in record time, the boy leaped from the cliff-side with a running start and plomped down onto the first platform, his Space Jump Boots his saviors once more. He wobbled his arms in the air in an attempt to retain balance, but opted to get down on all fours, as the platform was certainly much smaller than he made it out to be…not too unstable, though, so it was manageable.

"Okay, okay, okay, that's the first one…good job, Eddward, good job," he stammered to himself through a nervous grimace as he peered downward at the trench. Well, it certainly was not as deep as he made it out to be – if he happened to fall, there would probably only be a seventy-something percent chance that he would die instantly…leaving another thirty-percent chance that he would only fracture his spinal column or break both his legs. Not too bad, right?

"Nope, not bad at all…" the boy lied as he slowly got up onto eve-wobbling legs, fighting the urge to be airsick, seasick, snowsick, and icesick all at once. "Courage, Eddward…that's what you need…okay, now for the next one-"

A sudden rumbling sound followed by a jarring quaking sensation under his feet derailed Edd's train of thought and nearly caused him to tumble straight down into the trench. He looked downward in panic and noticed that, horror of horrors, his miniscule weight was still too much for the fragile platform to bear; he nearly screamed as he watched it begin crumble away and collapse at his very boot-tips!

"Oh _drat!_" Without preparation the lad jumped to the next platform, though his unstable landing caused _this_ stepping stone to crumble away as well! His heart pounding rapid-fire, he sprung onto the next platform, and then unto the next, and he somehow got the feeling that they were getting much more spread out from each other as he went. But the alcove was so near…he had to risk this last one; and so, with one final, courageous effort, he sprung toward the final platform.

But Edd's path was deterred as his right leg immediately sank straight through.

"_Baaaargh!_" Edd's shrill scream echoed across the canyon walls as the rest of his body began to sink through the platform, his left hand restlessly clawing at its snowy surface as death wrested its sickly grip around his ankle. He felt like an animal that had just stepped onto a trap hole covered with well disguised leaves, bound straight for a short future of darkness.

But Edd was never short of solutions, and this case was no different.

_…Oh, please, don't miss…_

A trail of electric-blue shot out from under the white remains of the destroyed platform and, like a whip, wrapped around a rock jutting from the cliff's edge; Edd immediately swung down into the cliff wall below, striking face-first into its rough surface. He panted heavily and urged himself not to look down as his bones rattled with an even mixture of fright and adrenaline. He looked upward, at first in disbelief, but then a warm feeling overtook him as he slowly began to smile.

He did not miss. The Grapple Beam had met its mark and saved his life, and he felt pretty freaking good.

Using the beam as a climbing rope, he slowly worked his way up along the cliff wall a good twenty feet until he finally reached the engraved alcove in the cliff side, whereupon he pulled himself up and rolled onto his back in the deep snow. He did not care about how he was _ever_ going to get back to the other end of the canyon…he was just happy that his accuracy had given him the chance to live another day.

It took a while before his breath slowly regressed back to its normal rate, and as it did so, a faint blue shimmer appeared in the corner of his left eye. Curious, Edd slowly sat up and looked toward the inner wall of the cave, and a strange artifact caught his wandering eye. It appeared formless, yes, but still it existed as a glowing mass of slate blue, exuding light energy in every direction like a dimly-lit light bulb…without the bulb, of course.

"It appears my hunch was correct…a good thing, too, which means this endeavor wasn't for naught," sighed Edd as he approached the beckoning light. "Let's hope this will provide a means to get back across this trench, yes?" With a heart full of high hopes, his left hand reached into the light…and as soon as he did so it dissipated into nothingness.

He recalled that this happened twice back in the Chozo Ruins, when he attained his Bomb Glove and Varia Suit, and so he amused himself with a game of guessing what aspect of his Varia Suit would be augmented next. His guess was right, to say the least, when his feet and shins became slightly warmer than usual. He looked downward at his feet, but noticed no aesthetic change in his boots, though they did sport a glossy sheen to them – very nice, indeed! And so Edd turned to his visor, which had become well-known for giving him accurate suit diagnostics. What did it have to say this time? What new ability did the boy chance upon?

Taking his time in reading through the text and analyzing the data, Edd realized what a boon this new mechanism was going to be in his travels…though it did make him a little queasy at the prospect of doing such a thing. He could easily see someone like Kevin doing something so extreme, but Kevin was not on Tallon IV; _he _was.

Disengaging the text, Edd walked toward the precipice of the alcove and gazed down at the canyon, which loomed about fifty-something feet below, though it was probably much deeper than that. Regardless, he was going to have to do the unimaginable to get back to the other side.

He wasn't cold, of course, but still Edd made a conscious effort to stop his body from trembling.

_I can't believe I'm about to do something so rash…_ thought Edd, unable to speak through rattling teeth as he inched closer and closer to the precipice of the cliff, feeling a bit like he was about to unwittingly commit suicide. _But…but I must! Alright, here we go…3...2…_

"_One!_" shouted Edd as he ceased his deep-breathing exercises and jumped straight off the cliff and into the maw of the trench below. The frigid air quickly rushed past him and scratched and singed his face, the torrents of wind deafening him to his own wailing. The hard part, though, was that he had to concentrate…concentrate harder than he ever had to before, for if he screwed this up…

No, he could not afford to screw up. Not after that awesome Grapple Beam stunt he pulled.

So with a concentrated effort, and with the bottom of the canyon nearing ever faster, Edd carefully readjusted himself in midair and stuck out his toes as far as he could. And with a sudden _ching-whirrrr_, Edd knew that the contraption had begun to work.

Edd did not go _ker-splat!_ against the ground, as much as he had expected to. Instead, he _skated_ down the cliff wall and onto the canyon floor, as if it were but a simple halfpipe in a modern-day skate park!

The boy strained and wobbled in order to keep his balance, but once he retained his composure, he kept straight ahead, a smile widening on his face. "Yes…yes! Success! _Success!_"

Edd's joy was unsurpassable; his brand-new 'Boost Boots' were operating at full capacity. The mechanisms, when motion-activated by Edd at the outstretching of his toes, activated a series of gravity-boosters on the bottom of his boots that allowed him to constantly hover about three inches off of the ground; however, the _real_ kicker was the fact that this allowed Edd to boost himself at high speeds across surfaces on which he would normally have to walk. Luckily, Edd was pretty darn good at ice-skating (and floor-skating!) back at the cul-de-sac, so this was simply a breeze for him – it simply ice-skating without the blades, after all.

Eager to truly test out the capabilities of this new mechanism, Edd gleefully skated across the expansive canyon floor, his own reflection in the ice joining him as he went at an ample speed, the frosty yet refreshing Phendrana atmosphere gliding past his face, and before he knew it, he had reached the very end of the canyon where he had first arrived, whereupon he directed himself straight up one of the slippery canyon walls and landed quite comfortably in the soft, new-fallen snow.

Shaking with excitement, Edd curled his toes, deactivating the Boost function. _I bet I would have shown Kevin a thing or two! _thought the boy with a laugh – he never thought much of those show-offy professional skaters on television, but now he could partially understand the reason why they sought such thrills – it _was_ pretty fun! Luckily enough the function was easy enough to get used to, which had become readily apparent when Edd _didn't _screw up or fall on his butt while using it.

With another enthralling endeavor behind him, he brushed the sticky snow off of his Varia Suit as he pondered where to go next, remembering the far-off ruins site by the shorelines; he definitely wanted to investigate that area in order to discover more about the ancient Chozo-established civilizations that seemed to be speckled across Tallon IV. Fortunately enough, upon a quick survey of the area, Edd noticed that the pathway he had taken to reach the canyon forked back in the same direction, except this path seemed to lead to a much higher perch than the last one.

_Right; that seems to be the path I'll need to take,_ he thought as he cleaned off his snowflake-speckled visor. _Instead of leading me back to those smaller ruins sites, this trail should direct me straight through the mountains and back to the shorelines. There, I should end up on a reasonably high cliff that will allow me to just jump straight over to that larger ruins site. It should be close enough, I think._

Before setting out on the trail, however, the tantalizing shimmer of recently-formed ice caught Edd's peripheral view, and he turned to the left to see what it was; and how fortunate that he would stumble upon another wholesome tablet of Chozo lore within this canyon site. As always, his scan visor revealed the meaning behind the writings of the long-gone civilization:

_  
Many Chozo have gone beyond now, and this is a mercy. Those of us who remain suffer in dimensional flux, drifting helplessly across time and space, guided by unseen and inexorable currents. The Chozo who cling to sanity fight the tide, but our minds are weakening. Soon we will all be like the Turned, Chozo who have been corrupted by the Great Poison. The Turned still hold to their Chozo forms, but their minds are black with fell intentions. Gone is their respect for life. They honor only destruction, and seek to disrupt the Artifact holding the Great Poison at bay. All life taunts them, and they do not rest. Before long, they will be all that remain of the Chozo here._

With a slight tap, the text was gone, and Edd had set out on the high road, his mind a-race with questions as he tried to dig up answers at the same time. His assumption that the path would lead him straight through the mountains and right back to the shorelines was correct, and so it was not long before he once again stepped out onto the familiar cliff-side overlooking the expansive shoreline valley. He took in a gulp of fresh air, relishing in the excitement of exploration, accidentally inhaling a snowflake and practically choking on it for a few seconds.

Though he had to hit his chest a few times and had to try to calm down, his mind was a-flutter with endless questions – his intrigue in the Chozo had once again arisen, as it had not been satiated within Magmoor and he had only caught a glimpse of the civilization's records back in the previous ruins.

"Surely there must be more that the Chozo left behind…" he mused as he brushed the fluttering snowflakes off of his visor and scanned the horizon – the star at the center of Tallon IV's solar system had begun to sink toward the alien horizon, and was a subtle reminder of the time that had passed since he and his friends opened up the Ed-to-Go stand at daybreak. He feared that it would be nightfall soon, and he did not really want to know what horrors awaited him in the nocturnal version of Tallon IV.

Luckily, his visor system had finally gained a sense of coordination and was able to give a good reading of the cardinal directions. Thus Edd learned that the region he was facing (namely the one that led to the elevator that came from Magmoor, the area from which he first arrived in Phendrana) was located to the north, which meant that he must have been on the far south end of the planet. At least he knew where he was, in a sense…though he still felt quite lost.

But his mind returned to the Chozo, and his bit his lower lip as he thought. "The buildings and records I've come across so far are indeed marvelous, but there must be _something else…_" He looked once again to the northwest, eyeing the far-off ruins he had seen before. Luckily, at this elevation, his Space Jump Boots would be able to give him the boost he needed to reach that area…

"There's _got_ to be something within that site," asserted Edd, mapping out his course and preparing to head over to the far-off ruins area. "I know I shouldn't be indulging myself with all of this excavation, but…I _must_ discover the mystery of the Chozo. There are so many loose ends that I've stumbled upon throughout my perilous escapade on this planet…I just _know_ that they're all connected somehow."

He nodded to himself and inhaled deeply once more. "Right, then. Time to-"

_REEAAAAARRRK!_

A sudden piercing screech from the sky prompted a nerve-shot Edd to yelp in surprise and dive back under the threshold of the mountain cave for cover. Lying flat on his stomach and shielding his head with his lustrous arm cannon, he peeked out toward the direction of the shoreline but saw nothing…nothing that could have emitted that horrifying screech, that is.

"Oh my word…what in heaven's name was _that_?!" stammered Edd, his chin burrowed deeply into the snow, his body trembling not from the freezing regional temperatures, but out of sheer fright. He had heard quite a vast array of primal cries since he landed on the planet, but this…_this _was something borne of an infernal nightmare…

And then something entered his field of vision…

A shadow?

Indeed, a shadow had suddenly been cast on the white-carpeted cliff that Edd had just been standing on, but it soon disappeared and was then cast on the valley far down below, traveling northward toward the far-off mountains Edd had seen before...probably toward the Magmoor region, or perhaps the rainforest where the gunship was. He could only catch a quick glimpse of it, but Edd was certain that he had seen that silhouette before…a winged, avian monstrosity, skeletal in form and reptilian in anatomy.

His heart pounding, Edd quickly, on all fours, scampered toward the cliff edge and looked toward the sky, far above the valley that he was overlooking. The alien sun was shining very brightly, so he could not get a good glimpse of the creature flying toward the endless white horizon.

But when the clouds overtook the Tallon sun, the figure became all too clear to Edd's eyes.

"…_Ridley?!_" whispered Edd as he watched the dreaded and ever-fearsome Space Pirate leader sail off toward the horizon on translucent, vermillion wings. "What in heaven's name…oh my word…that was Ridley!"

* * *

"Olly olly oxen free!"

Though the automated door had sealed itself shut, Ed's courage and curiosity was not the least bit deterred as he stepped into the hulking, pitch-black chamber. His loud cry echoed freely off of the many walls within the massive room, indicating its incredible proportions – the area must have been at least two stories tall! Unfortunately, even Ed did not possess the ability to see in the dark, and thus he simply wandered aimlessly within the chamber, a guffaw in his throat as his boots _clink-clanked_ against the metallic floor.

That is, until he struck face-first into an incredibly solid object that sent him staggering backward and onto his backside. "Whoops!" blathered the boy as he began to rise to his feet. "Excuse me, miss! Didn't see you there!" He squinted his eyes to get a good look at what he had just run into, but in the debilitating darkness, he could see naught but a faint, cylindrical shape that resembled a six-foot-tall containment tank with a translucent peering-glass. He pressed his fish-face against the glass and peered inside the tank, his open mouth fogging up the pristine surface.

…Nope, not a thing. Nothing interesting beyond the faint silhouette of what appeared to be a pair of ordinary-looking ski-goggles, but Ed wouldn't have been able to identify them if he tried. Thus, he lost interest in that and became more fixated on the fact that the glass tasted a bit like peppermint.

Turning his attention away and letting his tongue hang lazily out of his open mouth like an affable mutt, Ed looked around the room and saw that, in fact, it was not all morosely dark, and there were some sources of illumination, namely the large tanks that bordered every corner of the hexagonally-shaped room. These containment tanks were engraved into the wall like the giant exhibits that one would typically see in an aquarium, and were artificially illuminated to boot. In fact, as Ed looked upward, he could see that a tank was present on every wall on every level on this multi-story room – there must have been at least twenty of them! Unfortunately, several of them seemed to be completely empty or defunct – the one to Ed's immediate right flickered on and off, signifying a faulty electrical circuit within. The others, though…

"Whoa…way cool!" gasped the excited boy, trotting over to the northernmost tank and pressing his face against it, his eyes open wide and his jaw hanging open in a gleeful smile as he peered at the specimen stored within. The _Orpheon_ had held some frightening insectoid specimens and remnants, all of which had entrapped his attention quite easily at the time, but this was something the he had only pictured in his wildest dreams…and maybe even _this_ was out of his league.

But what in the world _was _it? That was the exciting thing! A phantom jellyfish? A carnivorous Jell-O apparition? Or the "Ethereal Squid Behemoth from SR388"? Gelatinous or no, he wanted to get his hands on it and freaking suffocate it with one of his fabled bear-hugs. ...And then it would dissipate into amorphous goo, and he'd probably be sad for a moment or two.

But it would truly be the "Ed" thing to do.

"Oh, it likes me!" he guffawed, wonderstruck as he eyed the basket-ball sized creature hovering emotionlessly in the tank, placid and perhaps a bit sedated, unresponsive to his attempts to garner its attention. Turning around and gaining a full view of each luminescent tank, he entered a state of pure marvel. "There's so many of them! Oh boy, oh boy! I wish Double Dee and Eddy were here to see this!

"Oh, I know! I bet Double Dee would say 'oh, how splendiferous! May I study their brains?!' and Eddy would say 'Let's sell the squids for cash!'"

Knowing that there were probably more aquatic wonders in the upper levels, and thoroughly believing that he had somehow found his way into Magic Seaworld, Ed took the nearby ramped staircase up to the highest level of the multi-story containment chamber, his eyes darting all about and marveling at the containment tanks as he traveled upward, level by level. At the top he found nothing too different save for an array of tanks that were, for the most part, filled with nothing but oxygen.

But what-ho! A hexagonal, automatic door reminiscent of the one he found in the cave was resting at the northernmost corner of the room. Eager to discern what wonders resided within, Ed galloped toward the portal and rammed headfirst into it. When the door did not budge, he stared at it, thoroughly confused, until he tried to whack it open with his arm cannon Russell.

_Ker-thwack! Ker-thonk! Ker-ping! Ker-wump!_

…Yet the portal did not budge. However, what _did_ budge on the fourth strike were Ed's eardrums, shaken by the piercing squeal of an emergency siren, suddenly sounding all throughout the chamber. The noise aching like toothpicks in his drumsticks, Ed clasped onto his ears and gritted his teeth in pain as he backed far away from the door and into the railing at the very end of the balcony. His vision was impaired by the chaotic flashing of crimson lights within the room, and thus he did not notice the multitude of security cameras that automatically homed in on his location. However, though he did not know what to do or what science-fiction reference to allude to…

…He knew that he had just screwed up big time.

* * *

The sudden revelation that Ridley was indeed present on Tallon IV had immediately caused Edd's weary heart to sink and his most horrid theories became a tad more valid than he would have hoped.

For instance, was he correct in his assumptions that the Space Pirates were indeed conducting operations on the planet? In Phendrana, no less?

_Well, no use denying it now – the Space Pirates are also on Tallon IV…oh, this is just wonderful, _he silently mused as he looked off toward the horizon where the dragon had flown off to. Wherever that thing was going, Edd would be sure to think twice before going in the same direction. He suspected that there may have been something going on behind the scenes that he and his friends were not initially aware of. Perhaps they were in more danger than he had initially suspected, but he could only wonder where that blasted dragon was sailing off to this time…

"Well, no use mulling over such details," sighed an exasperated Edd as he neared the cliff edge once again. From his current altitude, Edd could see the whole of Phendrana, and to great benefit, for after doing a bit of mental calculation, he determined that he _could_ physically make it over the ruins site he had been longing to investigate.

And the Space Jump Boots could make it happen. With a running start, Edd boosted himself off of the cliff and straight toward the ruins site, using his boots to lightly glide several dozen yards and down onto the entrance of the site. Greeted by ridiculously tall architecture and pillars ravaged by the snows of time upon landing, Edd knew that he was in for quite the treat.

He truly wanted to investigate the _interior_ of the temple, though the outside of the site quite interested him regardless: it did not take Edd long to find a resemblance within the sculptures that towered over him, and from what he could tell, they clearly resembled those he had previously seen in the Chozo Ruins only hours ago. Their extravagant designs and attention to detail signified that the Chozo must have established a colony or temple around the area, and, curious as to the nature of such an area, Edd ducked under the archway within the ruins site and emerged from a cave into quite a grandiose area.

He had come to expect no less from the Chozo. A three-story tall depiction of what seemed to be a celebrated elder of said race silently greeted him into a clearing surrounded by high-rising, time-eroded walls of ancient past. Edd could not help but silently nod to the statue; he felt as if it were personally welcoming him into the halls of the ancients, and to be honest, as a twelve-year-old denizen from a small cul-de-sac on the planet Earth, he felt extremely honored to be in its presence.

Edd looked upward and saw that the temple did not end at the head of the statue, for it expanded to about a total of five or six stories in height, and at its very top gushed a still, crystalline waterfall, long since frozen by the ices of time, and from this Edd guessed that he was standing at what used to be the basin of those falls. Unfortunately Edd could not gather much information or appreciation out of the cracked and derelict walls that surrounded him, so he set his sights high and let loose his Grapple beam on one of the statue's outstretched fingers and gently pulled himself up.

"Normally I would never _dream_ of scaling such a decrepit old monument, especially one as…well, tall as this one!" grunted Edd to himself as he slowly, and ever-so-carefully, climbed his way up the shoulder of the statue and rested against the monolith's well-crafted head (which was probably about the size of a trailer, it must be said) before scoping out another outcropping to grapple. "But there's one thing the Chozo have proven, it's that their architecture is _very_ durable! Who knows how long these statues have resided here?" A trail of electric-blue snaked outward and wrapped around an outcropping about fifteen feet above the statue's head, at which point Edd began climbing up it, nearing the five-story mark. Looking downward, he could see the basin where he had just been standing – a unique sight that nobody else would ever experience, for sure.

At this point he was at a high enough altitude to see that the frozen falls did have a source, and that they extended into a long, ornately-decorated corridor at the very top of the temple that seemed to lead into even further areas, and thus Edd carefully hovered down and landed on the frozen river.

Finding himself flanked by a series of pillars that continued all the way down to the end of the corridor, he carefully shimmied his way across the icy path, toward yet another well-crafted, albeit much, _much_ smaller statue depicting yet another Chozo elder with its arms outstretched in what appeared to be an act of offering, though from its bird-like beak fell a frozen stream of everlasting ice. Apparently, the region's effects had taken their toll on the wonders that existed here.

"It appears the Chozo had a penchant for honoring their elders…" commented Edd with a slight smirk, wondering just how many of these monoliths he had missed during his excursion back at the Chozo Ruins. "Unfortunately my scan visor doesn't provide me with a name for these leaders…well, isn't that inconvenient…"

But there remained more to see, apparently; to the statue's left existed what appeared to be a small but traversable tunnel that Edd just _might_ have been able to fit through. Luckily enough, the frosty climate may have reduced the amount of germs that could have been infesting that tunnel, so Edd allowed his curiosity to lead him through it. Also luckily, the ice in the tunnel allowed him to slide quite easily inside, so there was not much physical strain to undergo before he found himself at the other side, brushing his suit off and taking in a lung-full of fresh, frosty air once more.

"Ah…well, now _this_ is more like it!"

The archaeologist in Edd quite liked the chamber that the tunnel had just led him to. If Edd had to label the area, he'd probably use the word "chapel", given its wide expanse, snow-carpeted floors that made the scene look _quite_ regal, and its highly-ornate, decorative walls riddled with Chozo engravings and artistic patterns Edd had never seen before. The room was more or less plus-sign-shaped, which Edd personally felt to be an odd design choice by his standards, but who in the world was _he_ to question the ways of an alien civilization? Sometimes he criticized the Chozo, and sometimes he reveled in their wonders…perhaps this was just karma acting up after all of the mishaps back at the Chozo Ruins.

Edd walked along the snow-carpeted floor of the basket-ball-court-sized chapel, looking upward at the gaping hole in the ceiling that let in a very picturesque ray of sunlight that just plain added to the whole aesthetic charm of the place. Granted, there was not much to be studied here, but at least the place was quite marvelous to behold.

In fact, he was so taken in by the architecture that it was nearly two full minutes before he noticed the faint violet shimmer of light resting under the sizeable archway at the very end of the chapel. At this point, "shiny object" virtually meant "really good thing" to Edd, so naturally he started toward it like a fly to a light blub.

…Or like a fly to a fly zapper.

_Shooom-shooom-shooom-shooom!_ In an instant, Edd saw a wall of gargantuan proportions rise from the ground and block the archway where the artifact resided, and when he turned around in panic, he found that the four corner-walls that had given the room its plus-sign shape had fallen, revealing a bloodthirsty infant Sheegoth awaiting restlessly behind each; a full pack of them, to be exact!

And as was typical, all four of them barreled toward him, one coming in from each direction.

Edd's body wanted to melt into a pile of goo from the terror and the notion that he was about to be horribly maimed and grotesquely ingested, but his mind knew better – he had developed the tactics necessary for survival over this past day, and was not about to give in to defeat so easily. As his surroundings and the charging Sheegoths seemed to enter a mysterious phase of slow-motion, quickly pondered his options:

_Alright now…let's calm down and assess the situation. Four infant predators are coming at me from four directions: north, south, east and west. Arm cannon? No no no, I'd need to get behind them to do substantial damage – using missiles or the like would be ineffective from the front. Bombs? Perhaps, but I'll just attribute that last time to luck. Plus, there are four of them! Boost boots? Hardly; I'm trapped on all four sides, I'd never have time to escape. Grapple Beam? Don't be silly…although…_

And then the solution appeared within the confines of his mind in a golden brilliance. _Ah, this should work nicely._

Edd took a deep breath as the world returned to its normal pace.

…And an eye-blink later Edd was up in the air, and the four infant Sheegoths collided right into each other's faces. Not wasting any time, Edd swiftly dropped down from his incredibly deft Space Jump and quickly fashioned his Grapple Beam into a makeshift electric-blue energy lasso. He then hurled it straight toward the discombobulated Sheegoth collective, the beam-rope successfully trapping them, at which point Edd tightly pulled on it, effectively wrangling all four of them into a helpless bunch.

He was right: that one worked nicely, indeed.

"There we go!" cried Edd through a beamish grin as he separated the Grapple Beam from the metal module that generated it, tying a knot so as to contain the befuddled and trapped predators. "Nonviolent and quite traditional…I reckon!" Edd laughed after giving that last phrase quite the cheesy cowboy accent as he wiped his visor clean once more – he was not always given the luxury, but he much preferred handling confrontations in the most delicate way possible.

"Right, well, you four can just stay here while I go peruse that artifact, alright?" smiled Edd to the infant Sheegoths, who had begun to partially stir from their daze; one of them in particular had the gall to turn around and belch in Edd's general direction, at which point Edd reacted by shrieking like a little girl and zooming away on his Boost Boots as quickly as possible.

As he disengaged the boost function and tried to rid his nose of that disgusting odor, however, Edd couldn't help but feel that there was a bit of a seismic upheaval occurring within the chapel. Something akin to a small rumbling, really, that shook the ground every three-or-so seconds...kind of like an incoming stampede.

Edd paused his freaking-out and took careful measure of what was happening within the chapel, though he couldn't really put his finger on what exactly was occurring. "Odd…these reverberations aren't something that should be natural to this area. In fact, it sounds like it could be attributed to-"

_Ka-crasssshhhh!_

The gargantuan stone wall to Edd's right exploded in a flurry of fragments, bricks, and dust, and the boy's heart nearly rocketed into his own throat as he fell on his backside from the shock. Frantically, he backed away into the opposite wall as he gawked with disbelieving eyes at the fell behemoth that had burst from its archaic prison.

…And the first thing that entered his vision was a monstrous, never ending maelstrom…of teeth. A set of teeth so nightmare-inducing that the maws of the infant Sheegoths seemed like softened candy corns in comparison.

And at that point, Edd knew that 'nonviolently' was _not_ how this was going to turn out.

* * *

He had to admit it: at the rate things were going, things actually _could _have gotten worse than they already were, but Eddy just could not imagine _how_.

The exasperated boy looked upward at the expansive, winding cavern he had just tumbled through, unimpressed at the notion that he had actually fallen for such a cliché adventuring pitfall. What was more, it took him somewhere between five to twenty-something minutes to actually wake up from the concussion he received upon landing, so _that_ was pretty embarrassing. He was definitely not going to be going back the way he came, so he did the only thing he could do: he marched valiantly forward in the face of trepidation!

Well, maybe not valiantly; the scowling loudmouth simply kept to his irate grumbling and mumbling as he grudgingly proceeded through the dimly-lit hallway, his lungs practically churning inside out at the prospect of having to _inhale_ this stale air.

"Pfft…'at least I'm still in one piece!' Yeah, right. This whole shtick is bunk," snarled the boy as he ducked under a rust-hinged automatic doorway that only opened halfway. "Gawh, my stupid _jaw _still hurts." He grew tired of having to rub his own face with his left hand and became quite angry with the fact that his arm cannon was stuck on his right forearm twenty-four seven. "Urgh, stupid-lousy-stinkin'…"

He was pleasantly surprised when the arm cannon slid off like a glove, to say the least. Then he threw it as hard as he could against the rock wall of the hallway he had just passed through; he smirked as a small bit of stress escaped from his ears, and then he ran back and got his arm cannon, carrying it under his left arm as he went. His right hand was getting cramped up anyway.

He returned to the room he had entered before running back to get his weapon and was thoroughly confused by the layout, right off the bat. The whole room seemed to be quite sprawling in height, and Eddy guessed it was about as tall as a three-story house. There appeared to be three sets of balconies circling around the room, one on each floor, so apparently there were three different levels of this complex…which meant the place was likely pretty huge. But what really threw the kid off was the massive pillar stretching from the floor all the wait to the high-reaching ceiling. Scribbled with red, blue, and yellow rail tracks, pipes, as well as strange conduits that he couldn't even begin to understand (not that he _wanted_ to, frankly). He supposed that it was just placed there to confuse him and tick him off.

Because that's probably what the Space Pirates were trying to do in the first place: tick Eddy, from the small cul-de-sac of Peach Creek, off. That was their mission. That _had_ to be it.

"Looks like a trash heap," remarked the impatient boy as he looked around for something a bit more interesting than something that looked like an object he could have found in the local junkyard. But there was nothing to satiate his desire for something interesting, so, confused as to how the whole construct worked, Eddy knew that there was, once again, nowhere to go but up, and those balconies looked like a good place to start.

So, not seeing any ladders around, he jumped as high as he could and, with the power of his Space Jump Boots, was able to grab the railing of the first upper level and pulled himself up. "Whoa-ho, who's the man? Come on, who's the man? Yeah-hah…let's do this…"

A confident grimace etched upon his face, Eddy looked upward and saw another railing and jumped for that one…

_Ka-thunk!_

"_Dawwwwwwwrgh!_"

Needless to say, he wasn't nearly as successful as he'd predicted and planted himself jaw-first onto it with a very well-resounding _ka-thunk!_ Trying to mask his embarrassment from the concrete walls, he sheepishly pulled himself onto it and saw a third level and jumped for that one, his rousing failure from the last jump causing him to falter yet again and just barely grab hold of it, taking care not to drop his arm cannon as he pulled himself onto the third and final balcony.

"Dah, what's with this stupid _jaw?!_ _Grrrgh!_"

Needless to say it was a while before he got back up – Eddy was not a very cool customer when he became angry, and this complex was clearly wearing his patience thin. Not wanting to look back at the sizeable chamber he had just scaled, he scampered through the nearest doorway.

But lo and behold, Eddy found himself once again overlooking another seemingly endless downward chute leading into treacherous darkness unknown, and in his haste he nearly tumbled downward yet again, nearly repeating his mistake! However, Eddy was quite witty and prided himself in his inability to be fooled twice (sometimes), and was wary of the dire implications of such a fall, and instead had the common sense to instead slowly hover down the chute with the help of his boots.

Fifty feet he descended before he reached the bottom floor and landed on it gently with a soft _ka-clank_. At the bottom of the chasm he found himself in quite the small storage chamber, though immediately to his left he noticed another, slightly larger room which he just so happened to mosey into. This chamber, he noticed, was circular in nature, sporting quite a low-ceiling, not to mention rather nifty-looking control panel resting along the right wall, which he immediately took notice of.

"Looks like something Double Dee would mess around with," murmured Eddy as he prodded the thing, but continuous poking, punching, thrashing, and drop-kicking proved useless and could not evoke a response from the module. It took a while before Eddy's temper receded and he realized that a more delicate and analytical approach was required. And so, sneering and feeling like quite the geek, he activated his scan visor and analyzed the control board:

_Access to Phazon Mines Level Two granted_.

"Pfft, yeah, 'Phazon Mines,'" jeered Eddy as the room suddenly whirred to life much like the decrepit old elevators did way back on the _Orpheon_. "More like the 'Trash Heap of Outer Space…with Space Pirates and Lamebrains'. I'd rather be at the Jawbreaker Factory…or the stinking _dump_!"

As he guessed, the room was a makeshift elevator, and as it finished whirring to life, it began to slowly descend at a rather crawling pace. Though he knew that he was temporarily safe and that he had luckily not encountered any Space Pirates besides the one he had to tussle with beforehand, he was also aware that he was actually descending _deeper_ into this deathtrap. His anger was a good way to mask his fright, however – if there was anyone who felt more lost in this situation and more alienated than anyone, it was probably him.

And, of course, he really missed the other Eds.

Luckily enough, there was a large, single paned window on the far north end of the elevator, and seeing how there was nothing else to distract him, he curiously peered out of it, hoping to get a good bearing on where he was…or to see if he was on Mars or something.

"Uh…jeez Louise…this is just like something outta one of Ed's sci-fi movies…"

Eddy was right; this _was_ peculiar. Through the looking-glass, Eddy was gawking at what appeared to be the inside of a gargantuan crater. He thought back to when he first entered outer space back at the dock of the _Orpheon_, and vaguely remembered seeing such a crater on the planet's surface from afar. Well, this was that same crater, no doubt about it.

What was more, these so-called 'Phazon Mines' were positioned near the bottom of that crater, within the very edges of it, no less. He looked toward the sky, expecting to see an array of overcast clouds or at least the alien sun, but instead he witnessed something just as, or even _more_ peculiar: there, floating in midair several hundred feet above the crater, was a massive chunk of earth, about the size of a skyscraper, or even _larger _than that. And it was just floating there, as if by magic.

This was it. Eddy was finally interested. He wanted to know what in the world was causing that huge chunk of matter to float like that! What was it there for? What caused that crater in the first place? Why were the Space Pirates developing something called the 'Phazon Mines' only a mile or two from the center? That last bit wasn't nearly as interesting or cool as that giant floating piece of planet, but he still wanted to know.

But Eddy could not get a better glimpse before the elevator reached its destination, and his view was blocked by the age-old planetary crust, and before long, he was alone again.

…Well, _this_ was telling.


	11. The Metroids

_**Chapter Eleven**_

_**The Metroids**_

"Uh…um…the fearless Space Outlaw was all alone in the _dark_ and _mysterious_ alien experimentation room…with only his stellar space-gun Russell to keep him company as the Robot Bounty Hunters came to grind his bones into dust…"

The flashing shimmer-lights of red ceased their frenzied shuttering and the blaring _whoop-whoop!_ of the alarm system had slowly begun to fade out into a faint reverberation…and although the noise and chaos seemed to dissipate from the area to make way for an eerie silence, Ed did not exactly feel any calmer.

His third-person narrations helped ease his anxiety, yes, but they could not prepare him for whatever was about to come…or wherever it was going to come from.

That he decided to stay up there and take on the incoming "Robot Bounty Hunters" instead of jumping down to the first floor and escaping back to the caverns was mind-boggling in and of itself, but Ed was always one to revel in cinematic situations. He remembered that, about a year ago, he had entered Edd's room uninvited, and had triggered a similar alarm, and all he got were droning chants of "you have invaded my personal space!" drilling into his eardrums.

This was pretty similar, though he had a feeling that an angry Edd was not what he was about to confront.

"The Outlaw wanted to scream and run for his life!" he continued through chattering teeth, droplets of sweat slowly crawling their way down the side of his face. "But he had no choice but to confront his foes in the name of justice…or else _meet…his…maker…_"

Remaining ever-resolute, Ed slowly backed up until he was firmly up against the tall railing overlooking the rest of the three-story chamber, fixing his arm cannon's sights on the alarm-triggered doorway about ten feet in front of him. A charged Power Beam shot had begun to bloom at the maw of his weapon, at this point an instinctive reaction to danger.

If there were ever a time to flawlessly emulate the fighting prowess of a fabled Space Outlaw…this was it.

_Fzzzz-whirrr!_

Ed nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden sound of a releasing latch, coming directly from the door before him. But he did not lose his composure, and kept his trusty weapon at the ready.

"Uh…battle stations…ready!" Though he quaked in his boots and every digit on his hands trembled, Ed never slacked in his stance. He had experienced this many times, especially whenever an irate Sarah had barged down the basement stairway and kicked his door open with a shrill cry of "_Ed!_" Though of course he knew it was not going to be Sarah waiting behind this portal.

_Ka-clack!_

The second and final latch disengaged, and the outer rims of the hexagonal door had begun to shimmer with a sky-blue luminescence, indicating motion-sensored activation from the other side.

"Enemy…_incoming…!_" he shouted through gritted teeth as he hastily took time to readjust his pants. "Stellar-space guns ready! Aim…!"

_Wizz-shiiiiiiiing!_

The moment of truth had arrived, and without hesitation, Ed unleashed his charged blast at the black-clad assassin that had leaped into the chamber and directly toward his face; but alas! The assailant was immensely skilled in its craft and swashed its outstretched vermillion arm-blade with enough dexterity to deflect the blast, rendering it a helpless cloud of plasma-particles fluttering about in the air. Before Ed could even think about charging up another shot, the Space Pirate assassin dropped down directly in front of the boy and murderously swung its vorpal blade at his sweat-glistened neck.

But Ed's reflexes were not to be underestimated, either! With a bellowing cry of "gwarrgh!" he instinctively clamped his teeth onto the alien's blade like a bulldog to a mailman's pant leg, and though the alien struggled to wrest the boy off of its deadly weapon, Ed's jaw remained steadfast in its grip. What was more, it had not quite noticed the coils of electric blue Grapple Beam energy that had suddenly become lassoed around its ankles…well, until the last minute, that is.

"_Go back from whence you came, Plunderer of the Seven Solar Seas!_" commanded Ed heroically as he spat out the alien's blade and he used all of his girth to hurl the alien straight off of the balcony and down to the distant floor below, landing flat on its back with a satisfying _ker-crasssshhh!_

Ed took a moment to catch his breath and scratch his unibrow, a smile of victorious satisfaction upon his face. "Aha! The Pirate has been defeated, and the soldier has saved the da-"

A sudden and surprisingly tight grip on his left arm rendered him unable to finish his statement, and Ed quickly found himself being hurled through the air and crashing backfirst into the nearby wall with a painful _ker-thud!_

Slightly dazed but hardly confused (relatively speaking), he instinctively fired three ever-devastating missiles toward the general direction of his new opponent, a _second_ assassin, but was dismayed to see his three projectiles shot _right out of the air_ by a volley of reddened blasts from the opposite end of the room. Horrified, Ed turned his head in that direction and watched as the first assassin climbed its way back up onto the balcony, its weapon no less sharp-looking than before. It was quickly joined by another Pirate compatriot with the same weapon configurations.

"Flanked and with nowhere to turn, the Outlaw must make the greatest sacrifice…!" Ed mumbled aloud, swiftly working himself out of the small crater he had left in the wall, taking a few seconds to count the number of assassins lurching toward him with homicidal intent; he was hardly a pro with numbers, but he knew the arithmetic of this situation:

Three Space Pirates were _probably_ as bad as an upset Sarah.

"Ah! Space Pirate army _bad for Ed!_"

Ed quickly dropped the theatrics and considered common sense for once, sprinting directly toward the Space Pirate nearest him, which also happened to be the one that was blocking the door leading out of the massive containment chamber. Scoffing at such ludicrousness, the assassin readied its blade for a swift slice across the Earthling's throat, but was distracted by a volley of Power Beam shots directed at its face. The assailant ducked and deflected the shots quite professionally with its blade, but in its attempts it had failed to notice one key aspect: Ed had booked it right past it and was already high-tailing it out the door.

The three Space Pirate assassins swiftly bolted through the door in hot pursuit of the human intruder, of course.

"…Trouble! _Bad! Big!_ Run faster, Russell!"

He had made the smart decision, but the problem was that Ed was not the fastest of runners, and had never once seriously considered joining the track team at school; what was worse, this particular hallway seemed more like a cavern, and thus was decorated with knee-deep furnishings of sticky snow, which Ed could only _try_ to romp through. How frustrating!

The Space Pirates, on the other hand, simply pounced across the walls, blathering and roaring in unintelligible tongues like wild mountain lions chasing an injured goat. Ed attempted to pot-shot a few of them as he hopelessly tried to push through the thick snow, but the assassins were much too agile for him, not to mention they were pretty freaking close enough to cut off his head with a single swing anyway.

"Uh…uh…stay away!" he blared, inches away from a lethal sword-swing. "Do not force me to use my photon cannon!

"Oh wait, I think I left that at home, silly me…"

_Wizzz-shiiiiing!_

Ed snapped back into reality and looked in the direction he was running, immediately slowing to a stop with a wide-open jaw, watching as three more Space Pirate assassins dropped down from the upper hatch; instantly recognizing him as an intruder, they wasted no time in diving straight toward him, weapons extended and armor shimmering in the light of their sun-colored blades.

"_We are not long for this world, Russell!_"

* * *

"Ah…haha…m-my, aren't you a large one?"

It was not nearly as massive as, say, the monstrous Flaahgra, nor was it a hideous insectoid abomination, but this sure was not your average, run-of-the-mill infant Sheegoth. Currently backed up against the far western wall of the grandiose Chozo chapel, Edd had found himself faced eye-to-eye with what he presumed to be the alpha male of the entire Sheegoth pack…or at least, eye-to-six-eyes. The creature was roughly the size of an African elephant, dwarfing the other infants currently wrangled in the center of the snowed-in chapel by quite a margin, and, unlike its lesser-developed brethren, it sported six sky-blue optical organs on its skull.

…But Edd _really _hesitated to call them eyes – they looked far too lifeless to be compared to those of a normal animal. The icing on the cake, of course, was the crystalline array of spiked icicles jutting outward from its back, where an infant variant would normally sport a protective dorsal shell – these, Edd figured, probably served the purpose of protection and skewering whatever idiotic enemy dared to attempt an aerial assault.

_Um…alrighty then…let's try to avoid an unexpected acupuncture appointment…or at least an unfortunate trip through the digestive cycle!_

And, of course, the teeth. Yes, these were pretty similar to those sported by the infants, though there were probably about three times more of them within the gaping maw of this creature – the more, the merrier, after all!

Frankly, Edd would have _far_ _preferred_ chancing upon the abominable snowman. Or six of them.

_If I'm to develop a means for escape, or at least a way to subdue this behemoth, I'd better be quick about it! _thought Edd as he slowly began shimmying leftward along the wall, trying to move at a slow enough pace so that the beast would think he was actually stationary. _Oh, what I would give for a…oh my._

Edd's eyes had fallen upon the very center of the room, and he just _had_ to perform a double-take: the _infant Sheegoths_ were _also _trembling in fear! Was such horror a result of simply being in the elder Sheegoth's presence? Edd was flabbergasted: if those things represented Jimmy, this mammoth was most definitely Sarah.

Edd grimaced nervously and chuckled, looking back at the alpha male. _How discouraging! _he thought.

As it approached Edd, it momentarily paused to apathetically punt the wrangled group of infants far to the other side of the room, where they continued to sit around in a drunken stupor. Then it turned its nefarious attention back to Edd…

…Or at least to where Edd _had _been. In the time frame of that quick attack, Edd had all but vanished from the vicinity.

Thankfully, his Boost Boots had been sufficient enough to allow him to make a speedy escape, and had served well in making sure that he left no tracks in the snow; thus it was no wonder that the Sheegoth had probably been unaware that this clever Earthling was already behind the creature, a charged Power Beam blast practically _begging_ to be launched from his arm cannon.

Edd supposed that the creature's dorsal crystalline protrusions were far more resilient than the simple iced surfaces seen on lesser versions of the species, and thus concentrated his efforts on the beast's left hind leg; taking careful aim, he let loose the blast.

…But instead of a solid hit and a sharp bellow of pain from the Sheegoth, as he expected, something most peculiar occurred, and Edd could not decide whether he was either horrified or utterly fascinated by the phenomenon. He watched as his unleashed vermillion orb somehow curved _away_ from the creature's leg and instead struck the creature's dorsal spikes, whereupon the blast immediately dispersed into electrical energy along the creature's spikes, diffusing into its body, and strangely enough, this did not seem to damage it. He felt as if he could have chucked a bucket full of water at the Sheegoth and it would have given the same result.

_Now this right here…is fascinating,_ thought Edd as he slowly began charging up another blast, eager to test out his newest hypothesis. _I may be kicking myself later on for enacting such a reckless experiment, but…_

Unfortunately, the Sheegoth _had_ noticed Edd at that point, and therefore turned around and opened its expansive maw, unleashing a wild torrent of stale breath toward Edd's position. Edd thought nothing of it initially, reckoning that it did not compare to some of the abhorrent smells oft-beheld in Ed's room…

But that was _before_ his left arm had gradually become glazed with an impenetrable layer of solid ice.

"What the-_by Jove!_" shouted the boy as he speedily boosted away from the path of the Sheegoth's breath, his horror-filled eyes fixated upon his popsicle-arm. The Varia Suit could not stand up to this, apparently, for within a few seconds the feeling in this crucial extremity had already begun to slightly wane. "The Sheegoth's breath…has sub-zero properties? Oh, this is unheard of! Good Lord…this is not…good!"

Well, at least he did not realize that the sub-zero breath had also afflicted the tip of his hat.

This mighty creature was also mighty intelligent, for it decided to use the boy's dismay as an opportunity to strike, and had immediately begun to charge toward him like a berserk bull toward a red curtain. In quick response, his mind a-race with thoughts of thawing his arm before effects of hypothermia began to settle in, Edd blasted yet another quickly-charged Power Beam blast directly toward the beast's mouth, intending to give it a solid mouthful of searing plasma energy, but the same results occurred: the shot simply curved away from the Sheegoth's mouth and dispersed into its back-crystals.

_Drat! Not good! It has a natural fail-safe against my weaponry!_ He boosted away as fast as he could and was able, with a bit of luck, to escape the beast's ferocious killing pounce. But his victory was short-lived, for before he could even begin to flip through his survival options or potential means of escape, it was already too late.

It happened in about two seconds.

The crystals on the Sheegoth's back, glittering alight with multicolored shades of raw energy (fueled by both of Edd's Power Beam shots), entered the Sheegoth's body, and, in a flash, the mammoth creature parted its jaw once more and launched from its throat a hurtling ball of raw electrical energy aimed directly at Edd. This blast traveled at bullet-speed, and Edd could not even mentally react to it.

It hit the boy dead-on in the chest, sending him flying about ten meters through the air and straight into the nearby stone wall. With nothing more than a simple "_urk!_" the boy fell face-first onto the snow-carpeted chapel floor.

He did not budge an inch after that, and the snow had begun to accumulate on his body after a few seconds.

It was a fact that the Sheegoth's ace-in-the-hole rarely failed, which was precisely why it was near the very top of Tallon IV's food chain. This small earthling was, unfortunately, just another link in that chain, a victim of the unforgiving and never-ending biological process. A beast of stone-heartedness, its eyes reflected neither pity nor empathy for the boy's situation, though its mouthful of teeth was opened in what could have been described as an unfeeling, victorious grimace.

And so the gargantuan creature diverted its attention to the other side of the chapel, where the four infant Sheegoths lay wrangled, now completely aware and ravenous for sustenance. As was the way of a Sheegoth alpha male, the larger creature slowly stomped over toward them with the intent to free them and let them have their meal, its seismic stomps causing the entire Chozo temple to resonate with debilitating quakes…

_Whhhhhhirrrrrr-shoooom!_

Through its thick skin, the Sheegoth had almost disregarded the strange tingling feeling resonating on the thick, leathery hide of its back left leg, but its instincts were keen enough to compel it to look back to the other side of the chamber, where the most bizarre occurrence it had ever witnessed happened to be taking place.

"Take it away, momentum-centric physics!"

Ah, yes! The tenacious gears in Edd's daredevilish mind never ceased, and his latest tactic was most definitely among his most commendable! His Grapple Beam firmly lassoed around the Sheegoth's back left leg, Edd zoomed straight toward the creature at break-neck speed, his Boost Boots propelling him along the way. Confused and rightly irritated, as well as noticing that the boy's left arm had been freed of its ice-prison, the monster's car-crushing jaws opened wide, intending to vacuum him up as soon as he entered its range…and perhaps chew him up a bit before spitting him out for the others to feast on.

But Edd couldn't help but inwardly chuckle at the beast's predictability! As soon as he witnessed it do this, he swerved hard to the left and began to travel in an extraordinarily wide circle around the Sheegoth; in fact, just for good measure, he passed around the creature about half a dozen times, as he _was_ quite the perfectionist and wanted to make sure he got this one right.

But when Edd stopped about twenty meters in front of the monster, the Sheegoth had noticed the boy's pattern and pounced at him with all of the ravenous ferocity it could muster.

…And within moments of doing so, it crashed clumsily to the ground, immobilized, helpless, confused, and utterly defeated. Edd had wrapped his Grapple Beam around all four of the beast's legs, rendering each and every one of its limbs completely wrangled together and utterly useless.

He had hogtied a freaking Sheegoth.

"Alright, it has become much too warm for my liking!" Edd practically shouted as he hastily removed his Varia Suit's coat-piece, folded it, and placed it gently on the ground. Letting out a relieved sigh, he removed his arm cannon and visor, wiping his forehead several times as he waited for his body temperature to regress back to a normal state. "Ahhh, much better.

"Though I must say that it is quite convenient that I can personally customize the temperature settings of the Varia Suit – had I not been able to increase it of my own free will, my arm would have _never_ thawed from its frozen state. I shudder to think of what would have happened then!"

It took a few moments, but eventually it hit him: he was as dizzy as never before, and had to practically fall on his back in order to gain even a slight bit of control. He had never traveled at such fast speeds before; again, something that he thought only Kevin had the courage to do. But he could not have attacked the Sheegoth with his conventional weapons after figuring out exactly how its natural defenses worked: the spikes on its back were able to draw in and absorb any form of concentrated energy, which could then be stored and used by the Sheegoth at a whim. It had taken a direct hit in the chest with hisown energy to figure it out, but hey, he had succeeded in the end.

So he lay there, breathing deeply with closed eyes as he took in the cool winter atmosphere, trying to reorder the spiraling world back to the way he knew it.

_Once I manage to reconvene with Ed and Eddy, I will officially resign from performing these reckless stunts_. The thought of being able to put his trust in his friends in the midst of such dangerous situations put a smile on his face – it was something he greatly looked forward to. A team effort! That was what was needed if they were to survive this ordeal! The only problem would be convincing both Ed and Eddy not to overdo their Space Outlaw shenanigans…especially Ed, he of the overactive imagination and the overbuttered toast.

A rumbling in the northern section of the room, about fifteen feet from his position, caused Edd to stir from his short rest, and while his head was still a bit groggy from all of that ludicrous spinning-around, he took some comfort in noticing that the northern wall had receded, unveiling the glimmering light he had seen before his run-in with the Sheegoths.

"Ah, the prize awaits the victor…" chuckled the boy halfheartedly, slowly donning his coat-piece, arm cannon, and visor one by one before hurrying along to the hovering artifact – he had to admit that he was a bit anxious of what he was about to discover. It was always quite an experience to gain a new mechanism to use, and although Edd could not tell exactly what or who had left these artifacts behind, he was grateful that they were there. It was a mystery to be solved another day, he figured.

So, with a bit of apprehension and with a touch of curiosity, he slowly placed his hand in the light…and it, as always, diffused into the atmosphere.

Edd waited for the instinctive feeling that something within his Varia Suit system had been modified…it did not come until about ten seconds later, actually, but eventually it did; and it was a bit more subtle than the last one.

_Curious…_ thought Edd as he rotated his forearm a bit, followed by his wrist, followed by every digit on his right hand. Something felt…strange, to be honest. _There appears to have been some modification concerning the interior of my arm cannon…it's as my hand has more…wiggle-room, to put it one way._

His right hand was beginning to cramp up anyway, always being in the same position, and since the interior of his weapon had become a bit more comfortable and spacious, he decided to stretch out his fingers. _Ah, that's more like it…and yet…_

_ Whirrrr-clack._

The sound nearly caused Edd to jump in surprise, and probably because it resonated so close to him, and he definitely felt it reverberate throughout his arm. He looked at his arm cannon, curious as to what had happened, and was, to put it one way, astounded by what he saw.

His weapon had geometrically widened, by quite a sizeable margin, to be exact. What was more, the different components that made up the arm cannon had to be a bit spaced-out, and were unable to stretch themselves, and Edd saw that there was a luminous violet glow emanating from in between these components…as if they were coming from the "depths" of the cannon. Engaged, Edd wanted to know exactly how he had caused this to happen. He gave a thumbs-up gesture with his right hand…and the cannon closed up again. He then spread out his fingers horizontally…and the cannon opened up horizontally in correspondence.

He did this over and over until something finally occurred to him.

Edd made a trigger-pulling motion with all of his fingers; the result was hardly comparable to that of the Power Beam he had come to know like a brother.

Instead, what blasted out from his weapon was a three-pronged, snaking blast of violet energy that, upon striking the opposite wall, sent bolts of electron energy skittering in all directions along the surface. Edd did this again…and again…until he noticed quite a few patterns. The shots traveled substantially slower than those of the Power Beam, but seemed to be charged with electrons.

_The horrible shocking feeling that one gets when one is electrocuted by a faulty circuit…my arm cannon now possesses the ability to transit that feeling in the form of a projectile…_

"…Thus are the capabilities of the 'Wave Beam'," recited Edd as he carefully scoured the array of data that had sprung up on his visor shortly after he had first activated this alternate weapon. So many things he could do now…he felt a bit like Thor himself, with the power of lightning itself at his very hands!

_But I suppose that kind of line is best reserved for someone like Ed!_ he thought with a chuckle.

The new addition to his arsenal made him feel quite a bit safer and more capable of defending himself, but it did not enlighten his weary and well-traveled spirit, and as Edd looked through the large opening in the chapel ceiling, he could tell that nightfall would be approaching within the next two or three hours. "I'd better head out and find shelter somewhere," muttered Edd to himself, glancing warily over to the four constrained and ravenous infant Sheegoths and the equally-disabled gargantuan one. "No no no, this place is unsuitable for camping out. I could relish in a bit more excavation of the Phendrana region, but I'll need to decide on a definite spot in which to spend the night. Maybe I should scout out the shoreline…"

The nap that he had taken about an hour ago had helped him regain _some_ of the energy he lost between opening the Ed-to-Go stand and traveling through the Magmoor Caverns, but he did not feel fully satiated yet; it would not be long before his absolute bed-time would creep up on him. He exited the Chozo chapel and used his Space Jump Boots to slowly hover down the frozen waterfall to the base of the temple, at which point the entrance to the site was in sight. Once he was there, he flicked his left forearm a tad, disengaging the Grapple Beam lassoes around the Sheegoths back in the chapel, freeing them from captivity.

Edd then mulled over spending the night in this ancient outpost, but there was something about sleeping amidst spirits and gazing statues that made him a tad uneasy.

And so he stepped back out onto the shoreline and saw the alien sun reflected in the area's recognizable winding river. He could not see any decent camping spots around the area, but he'd probably have to excavate the area a bit more actively before he came to that conclusion.

"Then again, there is always the tunnel leading to the elevator to Magmoor," mused Edd as he surveyed the site, having not seen it from his northwestern position, nor from this altitude. He could see the southern skyline of Phendrana from this vista…or at least what was _not_ blocked by endless trails of mountains and jagged expanses. It still looked breathtaking all the same.

"But until then, I wonder if there would be any point to further studying this region," he continued, looking across the alien horizon. "I could always sit down and recalculate my priorities, but that would just…be…a…a…

"…oh, by Jove…is that what I think it is?!"

Edd's heart jumped, and so did he. His soul aflame with a rekindled excitement and sense of commitment, he practically leaped straight off of the cliff and toward the ones near the south, darting across the cliff-edges as fast as he could and through the mountain trails that led to the far south…

…The far south of Phendrana, where Edd saw the smoke billowing from what _had _to have been a crashed escape pod, blooming ever so slowly into the overcast sky of Tallon IV.

* * *

"Uh…wow, that was weird. Okay, uh…so…where was I going again?"

It was never easy reverting back to a survival-oriented mindset after witnessing something that was as mind-blowingly astounding as a gigantic crater and an equally-large slab of levitating earth above it, but Eddy knew that in his current situation, survival was paramount. Trying to jolt his mind back into the scenario, he stepped off of the now-dormant elevator and onto the freshly-tiled floors of the open hallway that elongated before him.

Oh, how he did not want to know where those tiles would lead him.

"So, what, more Space Pirate losers? Pshh, this can't get any worse than the first floor."

He did not know what the second subterranean level of these so-called 'Phazon Mines' had to offer him that was any different from the last, but he was hoping that security would be as lenient as it was back on that one. In total, he had encountered but _one_ Space Pirate that he had no choice but to fight off, while the other three that he had seen were easily evaded thanks to his stunning acrobatic abilities.

There _were_ those long lines of them in the courtyard _outside_ of the complex, but he had no idea where those guys had disappeared to, nor the things that were held within the crates that they had been toting. He remembered that the creatures in those boxes somewhat resembled mutated jellyfish, but he couldn't quite recall exactly what he had seen. He did not care either way, because…well, he was Eddy.

But his musings were quickly interrupted when his nose picked up a bizarre scent as he passed through this dank hallway. The place smelled a tad more…foul, really. Inhabited. Like something was there, or near there.

"Ugh, smells like the bathroom in Ed's basement," he scoffed, covering his nose as he looked around, remaining wary of his surroundings.

The upper levels sort of varied between smelling like natural caverns and empty school hallways, because they _had _been pretty empty. But it felt as if this place was a-buzz with activity, or at least it _was_ until recently.

It was like stepping into your own house and realizing that someone else was there with you, and Eddy obviously had a hunch as to who the "someone else" was.

So surely, one could not blame Eddy for feeling more than a little frightened when the automatic door at the end of the hallway slowly _whirr_-ed open upon recognizing his presence. He peeked out of the doorway and stuck his arm cannon out, scoping the area out multiple times in order to make sure the coast was clear…both floors, that was, though the large gridded balcony above seemed pretty devoid of Space Pirate flunkies…and hey, the ground level looked pretty clear, as well.

"Alright, lucked out again!" he whispered to himself. "They must've gotten word about how I kicked that first Pirate's butt. Yeah, they're probably runnin' scared right now!

"Uh…holy cow…would ya look at all those TV's!"

There was a _heck_ of a lot of stuff to peruse: numerous computer clusters and terminal stations lined the walls of the expansive chamber and speckled the room so thickly that Eddy found it quite hard to even maneuver through the area – it felt as if he were in a high-tech version of a stereotypical business office…except subterranean, of course. "Man, is it Christmas already? Because those are some pretty lame decorations."

But the near-comical amount of computers and gadgets within the area was not what had eventually made his aching jaw practically drop to the floor; _that_ honor went to the thirty-foot-tall containment tank standing stalwart in the center of it all, like a massive monolith erected in a sea of technology. Much like the one he had seen on Level One, the glass surface of this one was tainted with an electric blue tint, although there was no obscuring cloud of fog to block his sight this time; the horrific specimen inside the tank was all-too visible to Eddy.

And boy, was that thing gargantuan.

Even standing on the tips of his toes, Eddy could not even stand at shin-level compared to the thirty-foot-tall, hulking monstrosity within. A Space Pirate with heavily augmented muscle mass and a vast colony of mechanical weapons systems all over its body was staring unconsciously in Eddy's general direction, its head hanging down and its arms crossed in cold stasis.

"Man, talk about getting buff in a week," murmured Eddy sarcastically upon gaining control of his ability to speak; he was referring, of course, to the beast's unnatural-looking muscle man, which struck him as particularly nasty. "I'd love to see the look on Kevin's face if he saw this. Urgh, I wish I had an elephant-cage to bring this thing home in!"

He chuckled insidiously at the image of himself strolling down Kevin's driveway with this behemoth of a Space Pirate on a leash – Kevin would be pancake batter in seconds flat!

At least, he _thought _it was a Space Pirate – the thing was so hideously malformed and gargantuan that it looked so incomparable to the other, more lithe versions of the species he had seen before. Plus, he had no idea what all of those bulging, glowing blue tumors all over its body were supposed to be, but they looked highly unnatural.

'The Space Pirates are _mutating_ these poor creatures, gentlemen!'

"…Oh yeah, now I remember! Double Dee said something about these guys or somethin'…" He was vaguely reminded of Edd's words on the _Orpheon_; was this yet another result of the Pirates' sinister experimentations? Was this, in a way, a Parasite Queen 2.0? To be willing to mutate their own kind, these Pirates had to be quite cold-hearted, or even devoid of such an organ.

Appropriately, Eddy remembered the time when he and Edd had turned their dear friend Ed into a 'monster'…the damage done to the cul-de-sac had been immense by the end of _that_ day. Maybe he was not the right person to make such accusations?

Eddy glanced over at the terminals, but was far too uninterested in the data held within to expend the effort necessary to decipher the Space Pirate text. Wanting to take the easy way out, he stood as far back from them as possible and tried to scan the clusters as a whole, but his visor was only able to refer him to common repeating words within the systems…meaningless scientific words such as "Phazon", "Helix", "Phendrana", "Omega", and "Metroid", which he just dismissed.

The word "Prime" also came up several times, which reminded Eddy that it was 'prime' time to ditch the place before the flashing lights of LCD screens made him queasy. He space-jumped up onto the second floor balcony, completely skipping the stairs…and, woefully, he was greeted by yet another expansive array of computers and gizmos. "Sheesh, what feebs these guys are. Where are all the cartoon shows?" He wanted to spit on the floor in a gesture of distaste, but frankly, he had not had anything to drink all day…he could have killed for a soda.

The door, however, looked _much_ more appealing than this array of screens, and through it Eddy quickly went. A sizeable ventilation shaft greeted him, but failed to keep his attention, as well; deeming it 'boring', he quickly passed it by, finding it equally unremarkable.

Stepping cautiously through the next door, Eddy could have sworn that he had gone in the wrong direction, for he had found himself in yet _another _giant laboratory area riddled with terminals, although possibly the only difference this time was that he had entered on the second floor instead of the first.

"Oh, come on!" he scoffed through gritted teeth. "What could be _so interesting_ that the Pirates would need _so many freakin' computers?_"

Putting his arm cannon back on his…well, arm…he silently scoffed at his situation; Edd would have been a _much_ more suitable prisoner within this complex, and with such a vast network of data to sift through, it was doubtful that _he_ would have been bored. A doorway on the bottom floor beckoned him, and he did not feel like going through all of those computers and searching every nook and cranny for clues pertaining to the crater outside, so that was a much more welcome alternative. Maybe he'd find a window sooner or later?

Heck, at least he was glad that the Space Pirates seemed to have a general aversion to staying on Level Two, as well. "Those guys still haven't shown up yet. Less work for me, I guess. Just the way I like it."

But those…things. The mutated, gargantuan Space Pirates; there were three of them in large containment tanks scattered throughout the room, dormant, but still haunting nonetheless.

He had no choice but to persist in his travels, but Eddy felt as if something big was waiting for him at the end of these mines, if there _was_ an end. And at this rate…well, it seemed like he was eventually going to discover just what the Space Pirates were doing here, whether he liked it or not.

* * *

Time seemed to slow to a stop, as if fate _really _wanted Ed to come to terms with how terrible his situation was.

After all, he _knew_ what it was like to be flanked by an angry mob of neighborhood kids, as well as the nefarious Kanker Sisters; one could not get more unlucky than that, for sure! But then again, three Space Pirate assassins whirling toward his head with outstretched blades just itching to lacerate his skin were quite comparable and then some. Plus, no matter which direction he whirled his perspiring head, his eyes always met with those of the Pirates, and the murderous bloodlust therein.

He did not even have enough time for a dramatic narrative -- _that_ was how daunting the situation was!

In the midst of his panic, however, he took notice of one crucial detail, one that nearly anyone else would have missed: the door that he had just entered through had not closed just yet, though it probably would in just a few seconds…perhaps even less than that. He could not plan out his next action, for he did not have the mental capacity for it, but his instincts were more than a suitable substitute. He lashed his left arm out, his Grapple Beam _whizz_-ing through the frost-laden air and past the unaware Pirates, wrapping tightly around the railing of the third-floor balcony in the large room he had was in before.

"_Tally-ho! Hang on to your horses!_" With a compulsive tug on his part, the beam yanked him like a yo-yo straight back into the other room, smoothly sailing past the three flabbergasted Pirates that had been pursuing him from that direction, and with an eye-squinting _ka-thunk!_ his head crashed hard against the railing like a vehicle into a guard rail. Luckily enough, though, his diversion had worked, and the six Pirates nearly collided with each other...some of them did, actually!

"Haha, ouch! Ah, the Outlaw was too fast for the Space Pirate bounty hunters!_"_

Ed smiled stupidly for a moment or two, pleased that he at least got that bit of narration out, and he quickly took account of the situation, looking back toward the snow-encrusted hallway; the Pirates seemed to be bickering amongst themselves, probably berating one another for such shoddy assassination work.

This was his chance.

"Shhhhh!" gestured Ed to his own arm cannon as he quickly ran around to the other side of the balcony. "Be quiet, Russell…if the Space Pirates know we've escaped, they'll call in reinforcements and chase after us…and we will be goners!"

But once he was at the other side, near the staircase leading down to the bottom floor, he had a sudden change of heart, as he often did, and indulged himself in firing a mind-bogglingly swift barrage of missiles toward the hallway. He had never fired this many of the explosive projectiles, that was for sure. In the end, many of them did not even make it into the doorway and simply crashed and exploded into the nearby walls.

But a grand majority of them _did_ barrel down the hallway; explosions sounded, bright white lights shimmered blindingly from the doorway, enveloping the area in a mist of thick white brilliance. The guttural shrieks and pained growls of Space Pirates had topped it all off.

Sure, he had probably taken a few of them out, but one thing was for certain; he was still utterly trapped in the long run, though he did not realize it yet. The only other option would be to retreat to the caverns from whence he came…but what if the Pirates pursued him into that network? He preferred not to think it through, however, and he could not even if he tried. Hence, he bolted for the staircase leading to the lower floors, trying to escape the insurgency.

But before he could reach the stairway, a horrendous battle-cry sounded from behind, and before he could react, an elongated, hooked foot crashed into the left side of his face; the Space Pirate's brutal kick sent the boy careening downward two stories toward the bottom of the chamber, where he crashed face-first into the hard tiled floor.

He fought the debilitating grasp of unconsciousness and rose to his feet as quickly as he could; thankfully his precious visor was not damaged in any way. "Whoa…what time of day is it, ma'am?" he half-consciously chortled, turning to the massive containment tank he had seen upon first entering the room from the caverns. "Wup! Sorry, I hit my head, see? A-yup, that's gonna leave a mark!"

Regaining his senses a bit, he looked upward, toward the very top of the room, and saw that there was yet another Space Pirate up there; it must have been the one that had kicked him in the face and sent him crashing to the floor below! Cutting the theatrics for the moment, Ed set his arm cannon's sights toward that direction and prepared to fire another missile, as was customary.

_Ka-clank! Ka-clank! Ka-clank!_

"Agh! Soap!" screamed Ed, terribly frightened by the sudden noises sounding directly behind him. His heart sunk as he turned around as quickly as he could, facing yet another link in this chain of unfortunate events: t'was not soap, thankfully, but he _was_ gazing at the hunched, insectoid forms of three more Space Pirate assassins! Nervously mumbling to himself, he backed away as slowly as he could, biting his lower lip and gazing through wide-open eyes, nerve-shot as he fidgeted his arm cannon threateningly at all three of them. His threats could not pass his trembling lips.

_Ka-clank! Ka-clank! Ka-clank! Ka-clank!_

"Deodorant!" Ed spun around, his heart practically in his throat at the second surprise. Four more assassins, and from the top of the room, he could hear an array of similar _ka-clank-_ing noises.

The whole freaking security force was dropping in on his position, and Ed did not have enough pee in his system to wet his pants, so he did the only thing he could have done in such a situation:

"_P-prepare to be cast into the netherworld, invaders from the unknown!_"

And with that, the room exploded in a silver haze of missiles, the spirit of a Space Outlaw shining forth from Ed's stalwart silhouette.

* * *

"Oh, what I would give for some hot cocoa, or at least a well-furnished fireplace!"

The winding paths and tunnels in the southern mountain ranges of Phendrana had proven to be both physically challenging and mentally grueling, though when Edd stepped out of this particular tunnel, he found at least a small smidge of solace.

Stepping out into a small vale surrounded by looming white mountainous peaks, Edd found himself at the base of what appeared to be a miniature lake, complete with what he supposed to be a large, icy pike jutting out from the center and rising high into the sky, upon which rested a large platform roughly the size of a typical driveway. It looked vaguely artificial, so naturally he wanted to get up there and analyze its composition, but the problem was, well…actually _getting_ there.

"My Space Jump Boots probably won't be able to propel me to _that_ kind of height," he mused, surveying the area for something that would help him ascend to the top of the clearing. "And the cliff walls in this area are much too steep to scale…I _could_ construct an artificial ladder, but I'd require the proper materials…"

A series of large snow-tipped stepping stones lined the expanse of the lake, but the waters were far too shallow to make use of them – the lake's waters would have to be about twenty feet higher or so.

When he gazed far upward along the mountain walls, he noticed something most peculiar – stationed to the northwest, southeast, and so on, were four large ornate chutes with sizeable grates installed upon their openings. Supposing them to be mechanisms, he searched the premises for a way to somehow activate them, and it was not long before his ever-resourceful scan visor offered him the key to the situation.

Very near him, along the shorelines of the lake, was a mechanical panel on the ground that looked vaguely similar to a weight-measurer; his visor instructed him to step upon it and activate his Boost Boot module. When he did so, he noticed that, far above, the gratings had all lifted, opening up each chute. Edd smiled at the resourcefulness of his visor, and decided that there must have been another step in order to give him the passage he needed.

"Call me crazy…" he began, keeping his eyes ever-active as he scanned the area, eventually spotting a strange device about ten feet upward along the northernmost mountain wall. "But I believe this will take some environmental redecorating…!"

He carefully sidled along the narrow shoreline over to that area. He gave the mechanism a quick run-down with his scan visor, and what-ho, it appeared to be a receptacle for an electro-statically generated bomb. Quickly understanding the logic, he generated a bomb of his own within the palm of his left hand and inserted it within the slot, jumping away and onto one of the stepping-stones on the water's surface. He watched as it exploded, then turned to the sky.

"Judging from the unnatural level of humidity in this area, I'm guessing that there is a large basin of water behind these cliff walls...and seeing as how these chutes come from that same area…"

His predictions had once again come to pass; a torrent of water gushed forth from each massive chute, pouring into the lake and increasing the water level at a relatively rapid rate. Standing on one of the stepping stones that rose along with the water level, Edd proudly watched as the lower part of the vale became completely submerged with water, and the high-up platform that he had eyed before was now in reach. A simple Space-Jump was all that was needed at this point to reach it, and it was only a slight hop before he found himself standing upon it, overlooking the newly-renovated lake.

"There we go! Nothing like a bit of exterior decorating, hm?" he remarked, taking a moment to brush the snow droplets off of his visor.

Luckily enough, at this greatly-increased altitude, he could see the pillar of smoke he had seen from the shorelines, blooming in the southern sky; however, it was much closer now, probably only a mile away…maybe even less than that, which meant that only a single mountain range stood between him and the source of the smoke, which he supposed to be either Ed or Eddy's crash site.

"Which means I'm getting close," he mumbled. The large platform was gracious enough to provide Edd with two possible paths: one to the west, which led into a less-elevated portion of the Phendrana range, and one to the south, which led through a higher portion of the range and toward the smoke in the distance – ultimately, the latter was his destination, though he could not help but wonder why exactly passage through both paths was constricted by two hexagonal, shimmering automated doorways.

"That's strange…first the computer terminal at the shorelines, and now these artificially-constructed doorways…" He marched toward the southern door, a solemn archway of metal watching him stride under its expanse. "I can't help but think that this is an omen of things to come, but if that smoke doesn't say 'escape pod', then I don't know what will…oh, confound it!"

This automated door proved steadfast and would not react to Edd's attempts to open it; he tried to pry it open manually, but someone of Edd's physical stature was _hardly_ one to accomplish such a feat – he'd need Ed's horse-like strength to get past this one, and for all he knew, he was about a mile or two away; close, but not close enough.

"I suppose I'll have to try the other door; perhaps it will lead me to a convenient detour?"

Thus he chanced upon the other door, this one inset within a small alcove of industrial design, bordered by metal and presented at the very end of a steel-tiled floor, much like the platform that he had just been on. Luckily, _this_ portal opened upon sensing his presence, and Edd was rather taken aback when a path of highly-technological design, rather than an expansive natural tunnel of snow, unfurled before him.

He coerced himself to step inside, as he really had no choice, but the place just felt…uncomfortable.

A network of coolant pipes welded into the wall to his right; tubes of a virulent blue substance running along a parallel system to his left; holographic maps of garbled data projected and humming quietly above his head; the technology was astoundingly fascinating, sure, but in a malign way…it was like looking at a piece of art that you thought was well-painted, but one that you knew was amoral in its intention and themes.

Worst of all, it felt…familiar.

_Where have I seen this before? It certainly doesn't feel new to me, odd as it is to find such a place in a place like Phendrana…_ He slowed his pace and the _clank-a-clank_ of his boots against the ground slowly grew to a stop as he drew parallels between the soulless machinery surrounding him and something he had seen earlier this week…earlier this day…

_I'm beginning to think that this venture may not be in my best interest…_

Edd started to take a few nervous steps back toward the entrance from whence he came. This place reminded him of the _Orpheon_.

_Clank-a-clank-a-clank…_

_Grrr-raaaaaagh!_

"_Yaaaaaaagh!_"

It was _such_ a good thing that Edd did not turn his back to the hallway, for he would not have seen the limber, seven-foot-tall assassin hurtling toward him from the ceiling! It was simply by instinct that he fired his weapon, the Wave Beam, in the assailant's general direction, but his shot was far-off; the assassin wall-jumped before his shot could hit and it dropped in behind him, taking a swift swing at his scrawny neck.

Edd blocked the blow with his arm cannon, pretty much by accident, though that did not deter the assassin from grabbing him by the throat and hurling him down the corridor, where he landed and skidded on his back. The plating provided by his Varia Suit helped him withstand the otherwise debilitating blow, but he was not quick enough to rise to his feet before the monster was in his face again.

And it only took Edd a fragment of a second to realize that he was beholding the wretched, stale breath of a 100% authentic Space Pirate.

"Good _Lord! What in heaven's name are you doing here?!_" In a flash his arm cannon was in the Pirate's face, but his weapon was punched out of the way just as he fired a missile.

And then a pain most unimaginable entered his abdomen, and Edd doubled over; he had received a punch directly to his stomach.

The Pirate took this opportunity to activate a second blade on its right arm, and when he looked back down to skewer the Earthling through the skull a few times, he noticed that his target was gone, and an electrostatic bomb was fluctuating in his place.

Edd was reeling, but he managed to be right behind the Pirate right when the bomb went off; the blast must have fractured the beast's shinbone or at least inflicted some serious burns on it, because it was on one knee in a flash…and on its face after receiving three concussive missiles to its spinal column.

"Urk…I'm going to be sick…! Calm down, Eddward…calm down…deep breaths…"

Edd's scan visor determined that the Pirate was deceased, and for the best. Now Edd could sit down and try to let his digestive system reorganize itself. He eternally thanked his Varia Suit's resilience, for that one blow probably would have killed him had he not been wearing it – he was just lucky that the punch had not connected with his rib cage.

_But…a Space Pirate, here! In Phendrana! On Tallon IV!_ he thought, his mind racing at this revelation. _So Ridley did come here for a reason…he must be chaperoning these Space Pirates in…whatever they're doing! This explains the computer terminals in the Magmoor Caverns…that place must have been a source of geothermal power for the Pirates._

He took a deep breath and considered a few more possibilities.

_This must be another Pirate complex. Who knows how many of them they've established on this planet? What if…what if Ed and Eddy have…_

The thought of his friends meeting up with these vile creatures made his stomach churn with apprehension.

After such an ambush, Edd was understandably reluctant to proceed any further…but he had persevered before, and this time it seemed he had no choice but to do it again. He figured that it would be just like heading through the _Orpheon_ again…without Ed and Eddy to back him up, of course. Not too hard, right?

Not right; he was scared to death. Then again, this was his chance to find out exactly what the Pirates were doing on Tallon IV – if he passed this opportunity up…well, what would he do then?

So what little amount of courage he had left had driven him to take the nervous steps necessary to reach the next doorway, which opened up rather quickly at his presence, startling him but good. Hesitantly he stepped outward into a very large room consisting of two floors, the second one being a high-reaching balcony. But at least the coast was clear, so it was a bit easier to step out into the open than it should have been.

It was at that point that something quite peculiar caught his eye. From the very top of the room fluttered down a small object, metallic in design with a small glaring yellow eye-mechanism peering out toward his general direction, reminiscent of a hummingbird. It stopped about a foot before his nerve-wracked face and stared lifelessly at him for a moment or two.

"…Strange," commented Edd as he stepped forward in order to examine the bizarre little widget, having never seen anything quite like it. "What in heaven's name is-"

…And that was when the shrill, piercing sound of an alarm began to reverberate throughout the chamber, his surroundings flashing on-and-off in crimson hue as the creature exited and a monstrous flurry of stampeding footsteps rattled throughout the vicinity…and before Edd knew it,_ three_ freaking Space Pirates had burst into the room from the door at the other end of the area! With vicious talons toting weapons similar to Edd's own, they pointed in his general direction, blathering obscenities in alien tongue as they poised themselves to take down the intruder.

And boy did Edd scream.

Quick on his feet, the boy ducked behind one of the many metallic pillars lining the room, just in time to avoid a veritable swarm of red energy blasts that probably would have transformed him into something akin to Swiss cheese. This was mind-bogglingly dangerous and all, but more importantly, he had two questions on his mind at that moment that practically _begged_ answers:

'Why in the _world_ are the Space Pirates operating a base in, of all places, Phendrana', and 'how do I get rid of them without getting killed off myself?'

He had an idea, though, and he'd definitely have to risk getting his face blown off in the process, but if there was anything that Eddy had taught him over the years, it's that one must take chances every once in a while, no matter how _stupid_ and utterly _reckless_ they were.

Thus he charged a Wave Beam shot at the tip of his arm cannon and thanked the powers that were that the Pirates had not started dashing toward his position and instead remained far at the other end of the room, where they continued to fire a sporadic array of blasts at him.

_Alright then…in three…two…one…!_

His action was instantaneous: in an eyeblink he appeared from behind the pillar and aimed his arm cannon at one of the three Space Pirates and let fly his blast…and what a power-laden blast it was! A shimmering orb of violet and red hues, brimming and buzzing with a wellspring of crazed electrons, sailed quickly across the expansive room, and while the Pirate it was heading toward saw it coming and dove out of the way, it did not expect that the blast would have homing capabilities….Edd had only guessed that it would have such properties, himself! Thus, despite the Pirate's best efforts, the blast struck it squarely in the spine…

Edd had heard of fatal electrocution, but had never expected it to be so…grotesque. In an instant the Pirate's body had become hauntingly stiff, a bloodcurdling screech blaring forth from its throat as it remained as stiff as a board for about a few seconds before falling completely limp on the ground, its muscle systems twitching sporadically over and over again, a thin veil of smoke emanating from its lightly-fried carapace…its armor systems had been singed directly into its scaled flesh, and even from this distance Edd could smell it all too easily, and tried with all his might to deny the fact that it smelled like roast pork.

_Ugh, disgusting! I hope that didn't anger his companions…oh, who am I kidding? They're fuming!_

As he predicted, this provoked an even _more_ hostile reaction from the other Pirates, though interestingly, both of them simply remained where they were, increasing their rate of fire on the boy's position. Edd reasoned that these were ordinary Space Pirate troopers, as they did not possess the tactical diligence of the assassin that he had just encountered…perhaps these were lower-ranking soldiers? Nevertheless Edd repeated his strategy twice more, each time with success, before he emerged the victor, his incredible equipment and weapons allowing him to outlast much longer than he should have.

"...The Wave Beam seems to be an effective weapon, but the Power Beam seems to be the more…um…_humane_ approach," he reasoned, walking out from behind the pillar as he tried his best not to look in the general direction of the charred, twitching Pirate corpses he had just created. "Oh, but who am I kidding? Neither of them is a good route to take. Ah, well…let's see now, where in this confounded complex am I headed next?"

Now, he wanted to think better of it; he really _should_ have at first, really, but the room that the Pirates had come from had to have been of some of significance, and so Edd decided to begin his investigation of this facility there.

To his great relief, the place was not as booby-trapped with ridiculous amounts of machine guns and whirring saw-blades as he as expected…rather, it was a pretty empty chamber, the main point of interest being a rather sizeable computer console before him, and seeing as how it was the only significant thing within the room besides the foul odor of Pirate breath, it seemed to be quite a significant apparatus.

_Surely I can find something within this database…there has to be a reason why three Space Pirates were huddled around its monitor, right?_

Curious, Edd fiddled around with its switches and levers until he noticed something quite bizarre: his visor had sent an audio indication to him, in the form of a cute little '_bleep', _that its "databanks" had been updated. Wondering what this entailed, Edd tapped the visor a few times until his vision was marred by a dubious, tangerine-colored wireframe labeled with the cardinal directions, countless colored dots indicating doorways, and units indicating levels of elevation above or below Tallon IV's 'sea level'.

…_Oh my…now this will definitely prove resourceful in my investigation!_

Luckily for him, he had just chanced upon a digital _map_ of the entire freaking facility.

He noted that the place was far more expansive than he originally thought: in fact, it extended pretty far and deep into the mountain range, and the very back end of the massive complex opened up into what appeared to be a ridiculously expansive network of honeycombed caverns, probably within the lowest portions of the mountain range. Coincidentally enough, this was located south of where he was…which was also where the smoke he saw earlier was coming from.

_Which means that, if my calculations are correct and assuming that the smoke is indeed coming from an escape pod, either Ed or Eddy must have landed within those very caverns…well, this is fortunate! _he thought, a smile upon his face as he disengaged the map after close study. _Though this also means that one of them is quite close to this facility…I hope that the Pirates haven't chanced upon the site of the impact!_

_Right…there's no time to waste! Once I finish my investigation here, I must get to those networks!_

And so without delay he left the map room and returned to the chamber he was in before, heading straight up to the second floor balcony and accessing the automated door there. He was a man on a mission, and nothing was about to stop him from saving his friends! The fates were on his side this day!

* * *

Edd seriously considered breaking down in tears and wallowing pitifully in defeat.

This was absolutely ludicrous. He had never _seen _so many Space Pirates in one place. There must have been…well, at the very least, fifteen of them scattered throughout the whole chamber. The door that Edd had found had led him into a labyrinth of sprawling, empty hallways vaguely reminiscent of the ones he had seen on the _Orpheon_, which ultimately led him to a monstrously huge two story room littered with vast arrays of computer terminals that he was just _dying_ to peruse. In all honesty, who in their right mind would pass up such a treasure trove of data?

_But just look at that! I haven't a chance of survival if I engage them in combat! _he thought as he remained hidden in one of the room's darkest corners, his confidence shattered and wishing that his Varia Suit had come in a shade of black rather than luminescent vermillions and crimsons. He was out of sight, but getting to the other side of the room would be a trial and a half. _I'll have to sneak my way over to the elevator at the southern end of the room, but they'll no doubt hear me if I try to walk. Even crawling is too risky an endeavor…_

_But what about...? Ah, yes, we'll have to try that – it may be the only way._

It was so risqué that he seriously considered just forgetting about it and going back the way he came, but he convinced himself that he had no choice but to press on. Therefore, he slowly activating his Boost Boots and, as expected, had begun to hover three inches above the ground. Then, ever-so-slowly, he began to hover his way along the eastern wall, shaking like a surfer in a blizzard as he passed by large groups of Pirates, who seemed to be much too preoccupied in their _click-clack_-ing of keyboards to notice.

Luckily he had not run into any problems besides seeing what he had _thought_ to be a rat, and was able to reach the other side of the room, where a mini-elevator waited to take him up to the second-floor balcony above. Taking a quick moment to catch his breath, Edd slowly hovered his way onto the elevator; the device was motion-sensored and thus began to soundlessly raise him up to the upper level – he thanked the powers that were that the Pirates did not notice this, either!

_Alright, Eddward…the worst is behind you now. Take a deep breath…_

And as he did so he carefully scouted the upper level for any more Space Pirate personnel…and was immensely relieved to find that he was indeed alone at the moment. _Right…well, I seem to be in the clear. There, see what happens when you try? Perhaps Eddy was right about the risk-taking…maybe I'll have to consider his advi-_

Edd nearly yelped at the sight of an enormously expansive array of terminals simply residing by the exit – another trove of data waiting to be perused! Now, these were very similar to the other consoles, although this time his visor went out of its way to notify him that within these particular databases were significant reports that dealt with the core nature of the Pirates' operations, programs, and intentions. Basically, his visor was saying that, on an 'interesting' scale, these terminals contained stuff that ranked at about ten.

_So many wellsprings of information…it's like walking into the school library all over again! _he thought, his heart pounding with excitement as he gazed into the glimmer-lights of the LCD monitors before him. He tapped into his visor's scan function, intent on gathering the data inside the terminals, but then something occurred to him. _Hold on…my scan visor is able to obtain data from distant objects, too. This means that, from this balcony, I should be able to obtain the data contained within the terminals on the first floor, as well! Perhaps I'll give it a go…_

And so Edd began an extremely careful and covert scanning of nearly every significant database within the research chamber, making sure that the Pirates did not see him on the balcony doing so. The entire process took about a minute or so, and once he was sure that he had extracted as much data as possible from within the area, he sat down in a darkened corner by the doorway in order to give himself time to peruse it all.

_There we are,_ he thought as he tapped into his visor's databases, wishing he had access to a pair of reading glasses. _I don't think the Pirates will mind if I just sit here and skim over their most precious documents… _

_Now, let's see what we can learn from their perspective…_

So, with a trembling hand and a mind practically starving for answers to questions he had long since withheld, Edd beheld the treasure trove of data…the recordings and chronicles of the Space Pirates:

_Scans of the Spiral Sector detected a massive energy spike emanating from a Wanderer-class planet identified as Tallon IV. Scout reconnaissance was immediately dispatched to the center of the spike, a land mass at heading mark 40.08.02, returning with planetary samples and atmospheric imaging. Analysis shows the energy source to be an unstable and radioactive material of enormous potential. We are unable to form an accurate risk-assessment at this time, but we are unlikely to find an energy source this powerful again. Analysis will continue, but currently Tallon IV appears to be a viable secondary headquarters._

_"_Energy source…from within the planet? Unstable and radioactive…that explains their presence here…" whispered Edd to himself, scrolling through the text while trying to tie together the clues he had found so far throughout his journey…

_We have codified the newfound energy source as Phazon, a V-index mutagen of which we have very little reliable data. Indications point to a meteor of unknown origin impacting approximately fifty years ago, expelling Phazon into the environment. This material appears to possess lifelike characteristics, mutating organic life-forms strong enough to withstand its poison. These mutations appear promising, with abrupt evolutionary leaps appearing in single-generation reproduction. Plans to establish a full Science Team on Tallon IV are being finalized._

"…The meteor!" Edd practically gasped at this entry; the meteor the Chozo had mentioned must have been the same one the Pirates spoke of. "The Great Poison...they call it 'Phazon'…and it has mutagenic properties…intriguing!"

_Our initial tests exposing Tallon IV's indigenous parasites to Phazon appear to be successful. Increases in strength, size and aggressiveness are common in all test subjects, as well as unforeseen evolutions like additional poison sacs within the abdomen and the appearance of a second ring of mandibles in several subjects. These creatures were chosen because of their resilience, and it appears possible that, given enough exposure to Phazon, they may one day be able to survive on any planet we transport them to. Our methods will have to be refined: we currently have a 100% extinction rate after the fourth infusion period, and most survivors of the third infusion stage are so violent and uncontrollable that they have to be euthanized. Even still, we remain hopeful that further experimentation will result in success._

Edd immediately thought of the Parasite Queen on the _Orpheon_ – a creature mutated from such a humble norm, using the virulent power of the Great Poison itself…the properties of Phazon.

_Mining operations have begun near the crater where Phazon appears to be most concentrated. Daily Phazon yields have increased 44%, and our mining system becomes more streamlined as personnel and equipment flows increase. Several incidents of Phazon-induced madness have been reported, prompting augmented life-support regulations in the deeper chambers. Symptoms include loss of equilibrium, erratic respiration, muscle spasms, and in the most extreme cases, hallucinations. A timeline reassessment for the refinery operation is recommended, as the material proves more unstable than initial analysis indicated._

"Mining operations…oh, by Jove, they _must_ have another base of operations near the meteor's impact site." He could not help but shudder at the notion that Phazon had malicious affects on all who went near it… "This explains why some of the Chozo had gone mad as the poison spread…"

The next entry caught Edd's eye starting right with the opening line.

_ Research outpost Glacier One in the Phendrana Drifts region of Tallon IV's mountains is operating at 85% capacity. Sub-zero temperatures have made the Metroids sluggish and easy to control, even those well into Phazon-infusion cycles. Cold-containment stasis tanks are sufficient for the juveniles, but some of the larger Metroids have been moved to quarantined caves for safety purposes. Security doors remain an issue, as malfunctions due to ice occur every day. Large predators in the wastes are also a concern, as they continue to kill personnel and breach secure areas. Unfortunately, it has become clear that our containment teams cannot neutralize all of them without a vast increase in munitions and soldiers._

_…Which means that I am currently within a Space Pirate researching facility; 'Glacier One' is what they call it,_ thought Edd, his breathing rate ever-increasing at the flood of revelations. _A facility where the Pirates are using Phazon…the Great Poison mentioned by the Chozo…to mutate and transfigure the creatures of Tallon IV?_

Something changed after he read those entries; Edd had realized that what the Pirates were doing was not only dangerous for the fauna of Tallon IV…but it was also against his own morals. Experimentation was a process in learning new things, yes, but there was something inside Edd that was telling him that this was not all just for the 'good of science.'

_I must investigate…learn more about these operations._ _These events are on a much grander scale than I thought._

First things first, however: he had to get back to reality. Remembering that he was still in a room filled with Pirates, he became all-too-eager to get out of the area before he was sniped on the spot, climbing through the ceiling portal and into a snowy cavern area, away from the Pirates and into relative safety. He took a moment to catch his breath, overwhelmed by the stress of dealing with such danger, not to mention the astonishing nature of information he had just stumbled upon!

"So both the Space Pirates and the Chozo came in contact with this Great Poi…er, Phazon material," he mused, unable to keep his mind off of what he had just learned. "The Chozo must have come before the Pirates, of course, judging by the age of the lore I've found…but to actually harve-_gyaaah!_"

The sight of two ceiling-mounted turret guns aiming their treacherous barrels at his face was a pretty shocking sight, but Edd took ease when he noticed that they were quite deactivated. He gripped his chest and attempted to calm down, but found himself unable to in the midst of such barbaric weaponry, so instead he hurriedly shimmied his way down the tunnel and through the door at the end.

"Oh, would you look at that? This seems to be a trend…"

Yet another large room opened itself up for all to behold, but while it may have daunted or aggravated any other person, it served only to intrigue Edd's inquisitive mind. It seemed to be multiple stories in height, a series of platforms leading up to a balcony near the top of the expansive chamber and a small staircase leading down to a lowered section in front of him. The lower section seemed much more interesting to him, for in the very center of it rested a massive conglomeration of mechanisms put together to form what appeared to be a massive generator. From the high ceiling, a similar generator hung down, and Edd surmised that they were somehow supposed to work in tandem, but were both currently deactivated.

To the far side the room, opposite from where he had entered, Edd could see yet another cluttered cluster of terminals, his visor indicating that more crucial Pirate records were stored within – revelations were to be plentiful this day, it seemed! Deciding to start there, he slowly descended the stairs before him in order to get a closer look at the computers before even starting on the construct in the middle of the room.

_Ta-clank! Ta-clank!_

"…Why didn't I see this coming? Really, now!"

As expected, security was becoming much, much tighter as he progressed through the laboratories, and this was affirmed by the blazing stare of two Space Pirate assassins, one to his left and one to his right. Having just dropped in on their unsuspecting victim, they wasted no time in charging toward him, blades outstretched while Edd consciously fought the urge to freeze up with fear.

_On your toes, Eddward! Think quickly now!_

To be safe, he quickly jumped back up the staircase using his Space Jump Boots, which he did right as both Pirate swung their swords at him. In the confusion, the deadly swing of the Pirate on the left had cleaved off the head of the one on the right, the latter of which promptly collapsed on the ground as a puddle of green ooze burbled forth from its neck. Edd fought the urge to faint from the gory scene.

The remaining Pirate, enraged at his own folly, discarded its bloodstained edge and turned its plasma cannon on Edd, who was now on the stairs, unleashing a volley of crimson shots toward him. Remaining vigilant, Edd's Boost Boots allowed him to circle around the room, evading the shots quite well, but this assassin was quite the marksman compared to its brethren, and would no doubt score a few shots soon enough.

_This calls for a bit of deviation…and experimentation! Let's hope this goes well…_

And so Edd had enough time to ponder a few options, and there was one action in particular that he wished to test. He pointed his arm cannon at the Pirate and charged up a Power Beam shot, but as he did so, he changed his hand position quickly and used the motion required to fire a missile.

_Voila! Success!_

For a moment the orb of light at the end of his cannon retracted and compacted back into his arm cannon, as if it were about to backfire in his face. However, it was simply being concentrated into the shape of a missile while absorbing the concussive properties of the other blast. A second later, it burst forth from his arm cannon in an explosive blaze, sending Edd hurtling back into the wall behind him from the recoil as a ray of radiant vermillion light burned through the air like Haley's comet and hit the assassin square in the chest, resulting in a blinding explosion that, quite literally, sent the Pirate flying…in all directions.

An arm there, a leg there, the Pirate was in tatters; simply…splattered.

In fact, it was splattered _so well_ that Edd did not really notice any recognizable remains, so luckily he was of the impression that it had simply disintegrated into the atmosphere.

Edd shook his head, trying to come back to his senses. The trick had worked, and his hypothesis had been proven to be valid: by combining the Power Beam with the missile module, he had formulated a devastating new form of ammunition!

"I'll call it…the 'Super Missile'!" he noted with a grin, lauding his own brilliance at coming up with such an excellent tactic and name. "And now for this gigantic mechanism…let's see if we can't get this thing up and running, eh?"

_Bleep! Bleep-blip-blee-bloop!_

The sounds occurred from behind him, and sure enough Edd could see that one of the terminal screens had begun to flash on and off in light blue. That must have been the trigger for activating the mechanism! He simply strolled over to the computer and scanned it with his visor, hoping to find a way to decipher the keys he needed to press to activate it. But scanning it was sufficient enough, and suddenly the room had come abuzz with slight activity. Edd turned around and watched as the two generators began to stir, the nodes on their surfaces flashing with bright lights as they did so. Edd backed up in order to get a better look.

And voila! Only seconds after the machine whirred to life, a holographic light blazed forth from the center of the room, and a gigantic diorama appeared, hovering in the middle of the room, displaying a series of multicolored orbs, rings, orbital track patterns, and coordinate data.

Edd smiled as he realized that he had just happened upon a true observatory, and the planetarium had just unveiled itself for him to enjoy and peruse to his heart's content.

"Ah, this is what I was looking for!" he cried in glee as he circled around the room, marveling at the titanic holographic model before him. He jumped up to the very top of the room using his Space Jump Boots in order to get a better view of the diorama…and how truly impressive it was! From what he could see, five large orbs orbited in differing paths around a single star, much like the solar system he and his friends lived in…minus a few planets, of course. "Perhaps the Pirates have collected data on these planets and this star system? I could definitely use this opportunity to learn the nature of the solar system I have found myself stuck in…"

And so decided to spend a few moments learning about not only the world he and his friends were currently marooned on, but the solar system in which it resided.

First he learned that the central star of the solar system was known as 'FS-176', and was located within the Ooromine System, which was of course somewhere within the Milky Way Galaxy – Edd felt a tad bit relieved at this tidbit of trivia; it made him feel just a little bit closer to home than he had first felt. The closest planet to FS-176 was dubbed 'Bilium', and Edd was fascinated to learn that it was under 'quarantine' for being "rife with Miteralis, a sentient gaseous Global Exterminator virus". 'Ooromine II' was next in line, yet another terrestrial planet that was even smaller than Bilium; Edd was astonished upon learning that the Pirates classified it as an "uninhabitable wasteland savaged by nuclear dust storms and constant seismic upheavals."

"Well, it seems as if some of the planets within the Ooromine system aren't very…well, life-friendly…" He chuckled nervously at this revelation – he had once supposed Mercury and Venus to be quite uninhabitable, but he was starting to consider favoring those over the treacherous conditions found on Bilium and Ooromine II!

Twin Tabula was the oddly-named third planet from FS-176, and Edd could not help but wonder what exactly warranted such a bizarre name. His question was addressed by the data stored within the planet's file, which stated that the world was "best known for 'Twin Fever', a disease caused by a viral strain native to Twin Tabula. In the early stages of the disease, victims suffer from double vision. When the 'twin sight' fades, the victim is near death."

"Goodness gracious…it's revelations like these that make a man appreciate the solar system he comes from!" scoffed the boy sarcastically – suddenly the Ooromine System did not seem as appealing as it once was. He was glad that he had researched these worlds, however; it just solidified the fact that Tallon IV was a gem amongst these marred rocks.

Edd continued his expansive study of the solar system, but became a bit curious upon realizing that the next planet in line, called 'Zebes', had quite a database of information attributed to it; several hundred pages, to be honest! He only read the annotated version, however.

_Planet's crust is primarily Urthic ore, making it ideal for subterranean construction. A class XIX planet, Zebes is inhospitable to most bioforms. The world was considered unremarkable until it became a base for Space Pirate forces._

Edd went on to study the rest of the system, but did a double-take at the last line. The Space Pirates had _also_ inhabited the planet Zebes? Now this was something to look into…but he decided that one planet at a time would be the best way to go about it.

And last, but certainly not least, Tallon IV.

"I've learned much about the planet so far in my travels on its surface," remarked Edd with a smirk, scanning the orb that represented the world on which he stood. "But I'd like to get more solid data as to its characteristics. Ah, let's see what mysteries Tallon IV holds within its depths…"

_Ecosystem studies indicate that Tallon IV was a biological paradise prior to the impact of an extraterrestrial object. What remains of the biosphere is slowly fading due to exposure to Phazon radiation. At current rate of decay, Tallon IV will be a barren Class XIII wasteland in approximately 25 years._

Well…now he knew.

* * *

Another mutated Space Pirate; that made nine so far. Ever since he had started seeing the things, Eddy had begun to feel like he was part of a disturbing horror movie…or at least one of Ed's freakish comic books.

_Man, they just keep starin' at me…it's startin' to freak me out!_

He thought the Parasite Queen and the similar mutated abominations on the _Orpheon_ were gruesome enough, but these horribly transfigured Pirates were in a whole other league of scary, and it was a darn good thing that they were dormant, sleeping with half-open eyes, standing in pharaoh-like positions inside gargantuan containment tanks. They were like silent statues lining the corridors, gazing down at the short Earthling skittering down the echoic hallways, unable to acknowledge his presence.

It still felt as if they were watching him. That was why he did not stick around in the large research chamber he had come across about ten minutes ago – there were _so many _of those tanks in that room. That the Pirates would experiment on their own kind was just…

_I mean, talk about creepy,_ he thought as he jogged down yet another barren corridor, taking a liking to looking over his shoulder every few seconds due to the increasing paranoia. _It's like being in the trailer park on Halloween night…_

The very thought of the nefarious Kanker sisters made him shiver.

Also, it appeared as if the Pirates' security had finally kicked in, because he thought he had heard several of the aliens enter the chamber soon before he left. The fact that the hallways whirred to life with holographic projections and that the entire complex seemed to suddenly buzz with activity made Eddy think that the only reason why he had gotten as far as he did was because the Pirates were still busy setting up outside of the mining complex, and they were only _now_ beginning to take their work inside. He remained cautious, careful not to make too much noise, but he still had to pick up the pace, lest the Pirates extend their security forces all the way to Level 2, where he was.

_Yeah, just when I thought I had this thing in the bag, those bozos decided 'hey, let's just show up and wreck everything for ol' Eddy'!_

He slinked his way through the automated doorway at the end of the hall and kept next to the wall of the extraordinarily huge room he had found himself in. His eyes scanned the premises quickly, instinctively looking for a doorway to run through…and behold, there was one at the far side! He quickly tapped into his scan visor and, from the shadows, looked all around the room, into the darkest shadows…but there were no signs of life within. He deactivated his visor and did the only thing he could do: he made a break for the doorway about twenty feet away. Much of the room's floor was made up of metallic grating, and below them he could see a vast spider-web network of electrical currents and wires, providing and generating power for a tall mechanism in the center of the room. He could not figure out its workings, nor did he want to, thus be blazed across the room and ducked under the doorway.

But the quick sound of _tak-a-tak-a-tak-a-tak! _impeded his progress and forced him to dive for cover behind a nearby series of metallic storage crates. A close one, indeed!

_Man, what, has the cavalry arrived or something? What's all the racket about?_

He carefully peeked out from a crack between two boxes, and saw that there were three mounted turrets hanging from the ceiling, their barrels whirring in his general direction. Had he been any less attentive, he would have been shot dead…or at least pretty darn close. And with the amount of armoring he had on at the moment (namely, his 100% cotton shirt and very-trendy pantaloons), he was not going to even think about firing back at them. As far as he knew, there was no way…

_I'd rather suck eggs,_ he thought scathingly as he thought of a way past these turrets. _No way am I gonna end up like a piece-a-Swiss-cheese…_

…Ah, but what was this? Only about three feet next to him, out of the range of the turrets, was a 2x2 square chute in the floor that winded into a very small tunnel that led _under_ the floor and to the other side of the hall. "Aha! Who's the man with the plan?" He smiled mischievously and entered the hole, burrowing under the turrets like a rabbit burrowing across no man's land in war. He came out on the other side and was right beside the door he was aiming for, but he could not help notice that the turrets were still looking for him on the other side. Before ducking through the doorway, he let fly six missiles toward them, two for each. He was in the next room before the turrets were obliterated in three satisfying _ka-boom_s.

"Suckers…!" he jeered as he reveled in the destruction of his mechanical foes. No one impeded Eddy's progress and got away with it!

Another sizeable room awaited his weary feet, although the place looked…much different than the places he had already been. It looked far more natural, comprised mostly of rocky walls. It was as if everything he had seen before had been artificially constructed by the Pirates, whereas this room was just hollowed-out caverns.

Perhaps he was so deep in the mines that he had finally reached the mining caverns themselves? The room he was in was huge regardless from what he could see from the grated balcony he was standing on. He looked downward and saw a huge cluster of computer terminals, and, worse than that, about five Space Pirate researchers manning them.

Eddy groaned in frustration as he backed away and out of sight of the Pirates. "Great, how am I supposed to get past these jokers?" he grumbled, his eyebrows furrowed in frustration.

He risked a quick peek of the room again, but when he looked down at the very end of the research area, he noticed something quite strange. There was a massive hole in the wall, leading in what appeared to be all-natural caverns, which was protected by a massive force-field similar to the one he had seen outside of the mining complex.

But it was the things behind that force-field that made Eddy's heart skip a beat. There must have been about half a dozen of them, but behind the force-field, hovering about emotionlessly like poltergeists, were those gelatinous, jelly-fish-like creatures that he recognized from earlier that day! He remembered, out in the quarry, very near to the entrance of the complex, seeing a line of Space Pirates carrying crates filled with those creatures, and now he was seeing what had become of them – it looked as if they were being studied or something, but if they were behind that force-field, that meant that the Pirates did not want to come in contact with them.

"Man, it's a regular Seaworld in here," muttered Eddy, utterly freaked out at the sight of those hovering monstrosities. "Stinkin' jellyfish…but wait a second, if there's a big magic fence in the way, that means that the Pirates want to stay away from 'em. So…"

And so Eddy hatched the plan of the century. He looked around the balcony for a switch, a lever, or a shiny red button that would suffice, but he found nothing. Nothing but a single solitary computer terminal about a few feet away from him. At first he dismissed it as boring and geeky, but then he inspected it a bit more carefully.

Et voila!

On the screen there was a large prompt colored in red, and while the words on the screen were written in garbled Pirate-scribbles, he could see that the large button on the screen was supposed to activate something. So he touched the screen and activated the program on the computer, not really knowing what he was doing. But the _whirr-shooooom…_ sound that he heard immediately after doing so confirmed his success.

Eddy wanted a bag of popcorn. So bad.

He watched with a quiet cackle as the force-field deactivated…and wanted to laugh so badly when every Pirate turned and looked at the now-free creatures in what had to have been sheer horror. He watched them take several steps back, and he looked on as the jellyfish creatures all began to slowly hover toward the Pirates. Before long, red plasma shots were raining through the air, but they did nothing against those gelatinous creatures…well, actually, they did a fairly great job of aggravating them. One of the creatures immediately flew straight for a Pirate and did something…pretty terrible, actually.

It had used its pincers to latch directly onto one of the Pirates' reptilian faces, just like the creatures in Ed's horror movies! Eddy watched through squinted eyes, not really believing the awesomeness of what he was seeing: the Pirate began flailing about, shrieking in guttural tone as it smashed against walls and computer terminals. The other Pirates had taken to shooting at the Pirate, sometimes hitting the creature that had latched on, sometimes shooting the Pirate itself. But it was not long before the jellyfish let go and the Pirate fell limply to the ground, purely and utterly dead. And that was when the other jellyfish attacked the other Pirates, and Eddy just sat back and watched as the aliens hopelessly fought back against the floating creatures, each one eventually being latched onto and sucked dry of their energy before lifelessly collapsing to the ground.

And Eddy was in hysterics.

"Oh, man! Yeah, 'I'm a big, bad Space Pirate! Look at me run! I'm so scared of jellyfish, keep them away from me!'" He burst out in loud laughter, clutching his sides as he did so. "I thought you were supposed to be the tough guys! What chumps! I really feel bad for being afraid of you wusses, you know…well, no use crying over it now…"

…Though Eddy was forced to eat those words upon seeing those half-dozen jellyfish monstrosities zooming directly toward his screaming face.

_"Mommy! Gaaaaaaargh!"_

* * *

Many questions had been answered within the past ten minutes, though many still remained, and even more had formed within the ever-humming factory of Edd's mind. He was so entrenched in his own speculation and reasoning that he had subconsciously meandered his way out of the observatory, down the nearby transit corridor, and onto an automated elevator system.

_Of course…now I can see the connection…so many things make sense now,_ thought Edd as he bit his finger in deep thought, trying to piece together portions of the immense brainstorm within his mind. The hard part was summarizing all of his thoughts. _The meteor that had impacted the planet fifty years ago carried within it a virulent material…Phazon is what the Pirates called it…and it has been used by the Pirates in their genetics experiments. This explains the mutated insects we first observed on the Orpheon. This Phazon substance obviously has immense potential… _

_But at the same time I'm more than convinced that this Phazon is also the Great Poison that the Chozo were speaking of in their ancient records,_ he continued. _The Chozo said that this meteor caused the Phazon to spread throughout the planet, corrupting the world's environments at an exceedingly slow pace – aha! This explains the poisoned water supply in the Chozo Ruins: the Flaahgra must have been a strain of insect that was mutated by the Phazon into a toxin-creating monstrosity! This also explains the blue substance I found within the caves in the Phendrana mountain range – that radioactive substance must have been Phazon, too! So it's already found a way to pervade throughout the environment._

_And still the Chozo could not stop it, even with their protective temple and Cipher_, he concluded as he stepped off of the elevator.

…_And in twenty-five years, the Phazon will transform this world into a wasteland._

So many things were making sense at this point, but still Edd wanted to know more about what the Pirates were trying to achieve, and the magnitude of their Phazon experimentation programs – had they experimented on other creatures, too?

The doorway he entered through had led him to quite the refreshing vicinity: an open-aired courtyard that welcomed the cloudy Phendrana sky and the snow it constantly rained down upon the lands. Edd took a deep breath of relief, his lungs quite tired of the musty air within the confines of the dark laboratory. "Much better…" he sighed as he stretched, watching the clouds lazily roll by.

He walls around him were high-reaching, so unfortunately he could not see exactly how high he was in comparison to the rest of the laboratory, though he assumed that he was currently at the very top of the place – his map verified this assumption. What was more, above the southern doorway to the far side of the courtyard, which presumably led to more laboratory, was quite a hopeful sight: the smoke that he had seen before from the shorelines of Phendrana was quite close at this point, easily within a mile. Edd hypothesized that he would only have to persist through a few more hallways before reaching that area. The hope pushed him forward, urging him to press onward.

That is, until something else in the sky caught his eye. There were three of them, really, and while they looked quite a bit like crows in the distance, as they came closer they became all too familiar to Edd.

_Oh, come now, can't I have one moment of peace?!_

More Pirates had appeared, much to Edd's horror, though this was quite the odd battalion: hovering high above the courtyard, they sported relatively shoddy-looking jetpack-like modules that propelled them in the air. The three of them positioned themselves high in the sky, presumably taking careful aim of the boy down below. Edd could only guess what their intentions were, but the whistling sound he heard next was one that he was all too familiar with after years of hearing the mindless blaring of old-school cartoons in Ed's house: yes, this sound entailed a flurry of missiles raining down on his position!

His Boost Boots proved invaluable here, as he dashed and darted his way out of the range of the missiles, which, thankfully, were not designed to heat-seek like his were. Taking a moment to retaliate once the Pirates momentarily lost track of him, Edd charged up a Power Beam shot, and then subsequently unleashed a vicious Super Missile toward the hovering horrors. The recoil from the shot staggered him and nearly caused him to fall on his backside.

_Ka-boom!_

Not only was one Pirate practically disintegrated out of existence, but the one very near it was halfway consumed by the blast, emerging from the cloud of smoke with one less arm, one less leg, and a green comet-trail of blood trickling downward along with it as it crashed down to the whitened shorelines of Phendrana. The other Space Pirate simply stared at Edd before cocking its own arm cannon, emitting a guttural obscenity…and fleeing the vicinity.

_Alright, he's probably also going to…uh…come again? What's going on?_

…It took Edd a few moments to come to realize that he had, probably for the first time in his life, managed to _scare_ something off.

Legitimately.

Granted, he _had_ scared off a few students at his school before, when he had begun to ramble ceaselessly about his own ingeniously-conceived science fair projects, but _this_ was something of another league.

"I…I, uh…just…well…um…I…" he stumbled, having quite a hard time coming to grips with this new development.

He got out of there before the Pirate came back with reinforcements, obviously…which it did, four minutes after Edd left the vicinity.

The area became dark again as the automated door behind him closed, and he found himself riding down another elevator that started the instant he stepped upon its surface. As he felt it travel downward, he knew he was probably headed for more trouble, but then again, he was also headed toward what may have been a crash-site. Plus, he had no doubt that he was soon to learn more about the Space Pirates and the insidious Phazon he had just learned about.

The elevator came to a stop and Edd found himself looking down a night-black, narrow tunnel leading to a single automated doorway. He valiantly marched forward, but somehow it felt as if the hallway was becoming narrower as he went. T'was an illusion, yes, but he found it increasingly difficult to breathe as he neared the doorway, and, beginning to panic, hurried on across the threshold, whereupon the door closed once again.

…_What in heaven's name was that?_ he thought, trying to catch his breath. _Was that just apprehension? Fear? It feels as though I've just gotten a quick glimpse into my future…_

The omen he had mentioned earlier must have been more real than he thought.

He surveyed the area, wanting to kick himself for his hasty maneuver, but nothing substantial came to light…well, that was not entirely true. He seemed to be a sizeable alcove that seemed to be overlooking yet another massive Space Pirate research laboratory down below…again, there were too many Pirates here for someone of his stature to handle; upwards of twenty, he supposed. Luckily a solid sheet of glass separated him from them, so he felt relatively safe.

_Oh, for heaven's sake…_ he thought, his shoulders slumping as he grew more and more discouraged at his situation. _At some point or another I may have to engage such a vast horde of these arrogant alien creatures...I'm not sure I have the covert capabilities to…stay…out of…sight?_

Well, if there was one thing he had not noticed, it was the one cylindrical containment tank resting within the center of this little study-bubble. All of the ones he had come across so far had been empty, but this was was…quite occupied.

"…Oh my…what in heaven's name…is _that_?!"

Something told him not to approach the tank, but his endless curiosity compelled him forward. He could not even begin to draw comparisons between other creatures he had seen…and this one. It was pretty huge, quite a bit larger than a basketball, and it appeared gelatinous in form, almost like an ethereal, hovering jellyfish; contained within its translucent body was a myriad network of reddened nuclei stretching out in vast networks of veins along its carapace. At the bottom of its form, where a jellyfish's tentacles would normally reside, this creature sported a pair of razor-sharp pincers, hinting toward a carnivorous nature. Edd could not tell if the thing had acknowledged him, though; it did not hover any differently than it did before, and…well, it had no face.

But what _was _this thing? Why had Edd never seen it before?

And why was he not completely overwhelming this thing with his scan visor already?

"Could this be one of the species that the Pirates have been experimenting on?" he pondered as he gave the entrapped creature a quick run-down with his scan visor, hoping that this thing would be the missing link he needed to fully understand the Pirates' motives. "Ah, success! Let us see what my research has yielded…"

_Scan Completed._

_Morphology: Metroid_

_Metroids are energy-based parasitic predators. The dominant species of planet SR388, Metroids can suck the life force out of living things. A Metroid latches onto its prey and drains energy, growing larger as it does. _

_Danger level: HIGH._

"…Metroid, eh?" muttered Edd after reading the results a few times over. He repeated the word over and over in varying pace, remembering that it had been mentioned in one of the Space Pirate logs he had perused a few moments ago. "Yes, the Pirates mentioned these creatures…so I was right: these creatures _are_ the subjects of the Pirates' experimentations! Or at least, one species of many."

He peered a bit closer to the tank, wanting to get a better gist of its anatomy, which looked absolutely fascinating...

However, in an instant, the glass of the tank shattered into a cluster of shards, sending Edd reeling back as the Metroid was released into the chamber! _Now_ the thing acknowledged him, slowly beginning to hover toward him, emitting a high-pitched, inhumane cry as it did so. What a horrifying sound; it was completely otherworldly, something that Edd could not have dreamt up in his most vile of nightmares!

In natural defense, Edd screamed in fright and fired a missile toward the creature, but even this homing projectile missed, striking the glass wall at the other end of the room instead, the one separating this chamber from the rest of the lab. In an instant the glass shattered, and the twenty Space Pirates down below immediately reacted, brandishing their swords and growling at what had happened, looking upward at the research alcove where Edd and this 'Metroid' were.

The Metroid seemed to notice the change, too, for it changed its tactics quite a bit. Turning away from the horror-struck Edd, the ethereal being hovered down through the glass and down into the lab, where the Space Pirates had been stationed. Nerve-shot, Edd had wanted to get a look of what was going on down there…but the sudden thunderclap of gunfire had told him to stay back where it was safe.

The ensuing alien screams of agony made it far worse. That and the ripping and tearing of armor and reptilian flesh. He could smell the thick blood from where he was, and seriously considered making a run for it. He looked back toward the door from whence he came, but was dismayed when he saw that a series of metal clamps had generated across its surface, probably for security reasons, blocking his escape.

He would not have had a chance, anyway, for the Metroid had returned for the final course.

Well, as the scan indicated, it _was _larger than before; about three times its former size, so at this point it was larger than a freaking tire. However, it still looked utterly emotionless, what with the lack of face…and utter lack of a soul. Edd raised his shaking arm cannon toward the creature, concentrating and trying to keep himself from fainting in fright. This thing was not like the Sheegoths, or the Flaahgra, or the Magmoors…this was something out of a nightmare, something that haunted him to his very core. Something that every human should have feared…

"Oh, good Lord, _stay back!_" he cried as threateningly as he could, though the beast did not stop in its hovering. "Shoo! _Shoo! Get away this instant!_"

And that was when the beast flew toward his face, its piercing talons outstretched, a shrill, ghostly shriek emanating from its ghostly membrane.

_Ka-blaaaam! Ka-booom!_

Edd had closed his eyes when the creature barreled toward him, and he reopened them to a sight of thick smoke and a scattered array of Metroid parts and organs. Two Super Missiles was the winning formula, it seemed…provided he would have the stamina to use it in the future. The thing went down pretty easily given Edd's impressive weaponry, but he felt as if he had not really defeated it.

It…affected him in a way.

_M…Metroid… This creature was a Metroid…_

He wanted to get the heck out of there. Right away.

And so he approached the edge of the chamber and got ready to hover down to the array of computer terminals below. But it took him a while, what with the scattered pile of empty Space Pirate husks scattered in tatters around the room. It looked like an utter warzone down there…a regular bloodbath…so before he went down, he decided to obtain data from the necessary terminals from where he was, sitting down in order to catch his breath and settle his stomach.

"Such wanton destruction…" he murmured, horror-stricken at the destruction that a single Metroid had wrought unto an entire expanse of Space Pirates. He did not want to imagine the potential devastation that these things could have brought after Phazon infusion, that was for sure. He turned his deliberations to the material he had just scanned, as well as the excerpts he had scanned in the observatory, hoping to take his mind off of the corpses down below…and the nightmarish being he had just confronted:

_Most terraforming and retrofitting of security checkpoints on Tallon IV is complete, but we continue to research the alarming epidemic of breaches by local creatures. Door records show no unauthorized entries, so we must presume the creatures are either slipping in undetected during daily personnel moves or else finding their way in through subterranean tunnels. We have found many small breaches of this latter sort and plug them wherever we can, but it is unlikely that we will ever achieve full extermination with our current timetable._

_ …_

_ Phazon mining is under way. Several garrisons have been established, and terraforming of the Chozo Ruins is under way. Security systems are operational, and Science Team continues to make progress in their biotech research. The Phendrana Drifts have proven to be an optimal location for Research Headquarters, and soon it will be joined by a fully operational Combat base and starport. If Command's predictions are half true, we shall rise to dominance in this sector within a deca-cycle. Truly, these are glorious times._

Edd stared in bewilderment at this particular excerpt. "The Chozo Ruins…the Pirates have even gone as far as to desecrate such a place…I was fortunate not to run into any of them during my expedition, but still…" It seemed the Pirates' efforts were more far-reaching than he had predicted.

_Initial transfer of Metroids to Tallon IV research facilities has been completed. Three were terminated in an incident at the landing site, but the others were pacified and transported safely. Initial Phazon-infusion testing is under way. We are eager to observe the effects of Phazon on Metroids, especially their ability to absorb and process the energy given off by Phazon sources. Early research suggests a considerable growth in power and size. Whether the creatures stay stable thereafter remains to be seen._

Edd shuddered at the thought of infusing Metroids with Phazon…it appeared as if he was right to fear such a nightmare.

The next excerpt caught his attention right off the bat with the mention of a familiar name.

_The reconstruction of geoform 187, code-named Ridley, was recently completed. After his defeat during the unprecedented Zebes incident, Command ordered a number of metagenetic improvements for him. Though aggressive, we were able to implement these changes in a cycle. The metamorphosis was painful, but quite successful in the end. Early tests indicate a drastic increase in strength, mobility, and offensive capability. Cybernetic modules and armor plating have been added as well. We believe our creation, now called Meta Ridley, will become the mainstay of our security force, a job he will certainly relish._

"More mention of Ridley, it seems," remarked Edd, a bit quizzical toward this entry. "If I consider what this is saying and pair it with the information I retrieved back at the observatory, then it appears that an event took place on the planet Zebes some time before the Pirates arrived here…before Ed, Eddy and myself arrived here. I can only hope that there will be future mention of this 'unprecedented incident' in further excerpts…I don't think the three of us will readily agree on making a short trip to Zebes!"

_Confidence is high regarding Phazon applications. We know enough about Phazon now to begin combining it with Space Pirate DNA. The code name for this venture will be 'Project Helix'. Preliminary studies indicate that Phazon infusion could produce radical new Pirate genomes. Benevolent mutation levels are high in current test subjects. Phazon madness is a concern, but refinements in the infusion process should reduce or neutralize the odds of mental degeneration._

"_Infusion with Space Pirates?!_" shouted Edd, standing straight up upon reading the first few sentences of this entry. "Why, are they mad? Have they no shame?! _No moral decency?!_ Why, to ruthlessly experiment on other creatures is one thing, but to experiment and alter one's own kind…its reprehensible! Worse than that!

"Oh, this…'Project Helix'…oh yes, this will be something to research _extensively _in the future…"

He continued on to the final entries.

_Metroid dissection continues to provide more questions than answers. Our research teams have isolated the energy conduits that run from the invasive twin mandibles to the energy core in the creature's quadripartite nucleus, but the manner in which a Metroid actually extracts the life force from its prey remains an utter mystery. The victim does not loose blood or any other vital fluids, and yet the Metroid extracts energy: identifying this energy is our central problem. It takes no physical form, and yet without it, the victim dies. We will continue to research this matter, as the isolation of this life-giving essence could be the key to our ascendance._

_ …_

_ Studies of Metroid biology continue, though with limited progress. It seems likely that we will be much more successful using the Metroids for our means rather than trying to reproduce their powers. If they could be adequately tamed, we would have no need of a proper understanding of their metabolism. A small force of disciplined Metroids could wipe out entire armies, and once we find a way to shield them from cold-containment weapons, they will be invincible. Furthermore, if we could then harvest the energy they'd consumed, we would have a near-limitless source of power at our disposal._

Edd tuned out from his results and began to slowly regain his composure after a long reading session. Well, _this_ was unprecedented.

"The Pirates are cultivating Metroids for both military and energy purposes, if I'm interpreting that correctly. I'm beginning to see a recurring theme here…it seems the Pirates are conducting these experiments in pursuit of military power…but why would they want this? Were they oppressed by a grander force? Do they have delusions of grandeur? So many questions…so little time…"

The data was ever-tantalizing, yes, but he wanted to stay away from the war-zone as much as possible, before the stench and the sight of the Pirate remains made him sick for the second time that day. Covering his nose, he dropped down to the floor below and quickly boosted his way through the first open door he could find, which led to yet another hallway…one of hundreds, it seemed.

He stood within the snow-covered tunnel to catch his breath. It took him a while, of course, so in the meantime he sat down in the knee-deep snow, his mind suddenly drifting off as he became increasingly fatigued from his ordeal. It must have been nearing…seven o'clock back on Earth. Eight, perhaps? Late, in any case.

_There is so much to think about now than when my colleagues and I first landed on Tallon IV_, he thought, wiping his weary eyes, feeling the stress creep up as he felt the weight of a world fall unto his shoulders. _At first we were dedicated to survival…reconnaissance…returning home…but now, what with the Chozo, the Cipher, the Phazon, the Space Pirates, the Metroids, Project Helix…I can't help but feel as if we're obligated to do something about this._

Edd looked down at his arm cannon, and then to his own Varia Suit, gazing at his own reflection therein.

_These mechanisms…I've used them for self-defense…for my own survival. They're the only reason why I've gotten as far as I have. But can I…well, can we use them to intervene in this crisis? Would it be wrong if the three of us just returned home without having a final say as to the fate of these events? Oh dear, listen to me. I need to sleep…_

And then he noticed something.

Snow.

Snow in a Space Pirate laboratory, and in a security tunnel no less. He gazed down the path, where an automated door rested at the very far end, about twenty feet away. The snow on this path was extremely well-trodden, actually. Most of the snow he had seen thus far in Phendrana was newly-fallen, because nobody had ever been there before he had arrived, but this…this looked like the cul-de-sac after an over-night snowfall once the kids had their way romping through it. It was recent, too – a confrontation, mayhap? A Space Pirate snowball fight? Edd chuckled at the thought.

_Ta-kunk! Ta-clank!_

Edd's ears perked at the sound of metal clashing with metal, the sound of shots being fired in a far-off vicinity…the sounds of battle…the sounds of war…he dismissed it in favor of rest.

"_Feel the wrath of my ultra-ray! Ho-ho, feel the wrath of my lasagna!"_

Edd's eyes shot wide open and he stood up as quickly as he could upon hearing a dramatic, bellowing voice reverberate through that far-off doorway, echo across the cavern walls, and travel through his eardrums.

His adrenaline rushing like raging rapids, and without a moment's thought, he activated his Boost Boots and shot down the hallway, preferring to not have to wade through the debilitating snow, whereupon he blazed right through the open automating door and crashed right into the railing in the chamber he had found himself in. He staggered back and nearly passed out from the discombobulation, but he quickly reoriented himself upon hearing the _tak-a-tak-a-tak_ of gunfire…

…And the screeching of Space Pirates within the vicinity! A battle was taking place within this very chamber!

"…What in the world…what is going on in here?!" cried Edd aloud as he rushed to the railing once more and looked down to the first floor nearly thirty feet below, and he nearly screamed in terror at the sight of nearly a dozen Space Pirates all engaging in chaotic battle down at the bottom of the room.

But amidst the chaos, the swirling vermillion and the night-black armor, Edd thought he saw a glimmer of a familiar color…the stench of six-month-old cheese…the forest-green hue of a well-worn, unsanitary jacket…

It was him, all right.

* * *

_"Ed!_" screamed Edd with all of his vocal might down at the valiant soldier fending off the twelve Space Pirates at the bottom of the room, and soon enough, a familiar voice sounded back from amidst the discord:

_"_Whoa…_Double Dee!_" Ed took a moment to look up from the discord surrounding him, and though he really had to squint hard, he could actually see him – his long lost pal, Edd, was up at the top of the room, staring down at him! "_What brings you to these parts, Double Dee-"_

"_Watch out, Ed!_" Edd tried to get Ed's attention in order to prevent the worst from happening, and luckily, Ed was able to block a potentially lethal strike from a nearby Pirate assassin using his arm cannon as a shield. "_Hold on, Ed! I'm coming down there to help! Stay alert and watch your back, please!_" He immediately dashed for the ramp leading down to the second-floor balcony, hardly seeing the sense in jumping all the way down to the bottom floor right off the bat.

"Oh, cool! Better get your fishing pole, Double Dee, because I am swamped! Ah-ha-ha!" With newly-restored vigor, Ed took his arm cannon and freaking _pummeled_ a Space Pirate assassin square in the cranium, fracturing its skull and sending it toppling to the ground in a misshapen mess. "The Space Outlaws have reunited, and they will _fight off the alien invasion as one! Tremble and run home to mommy, invaders from the beyond!"_

Edd was panicked on the inside, yes, but he couldn't help but laugh full-heartedly at the familiar comment. It was so good to hear Ed's voice again, to hear his nonsensical interjections! It was so good to know that he was not alone anymore! "_That's the spirit, Ed!_" he shouted as he descended the ramp on his Boost Boots, hurrying to join his companion in fighting off their common foes.

_Ka-thunk ka-thunk!_

He was unable to see it coming at first, but Edd quickly came to the realization that two Space Pirate assassins had dropped down from the top floor, one directly in front of him and one directly behind – the boy was flanked but good. With vigor the Space Pirate in front swung downward with its arm-blade, attempting to bisect the boy, but Edd was too battle-seasoned to be caught off-guard like that…perhaps the Edd of yesterday, but not the Edd of today! Instead, he dodged to the left and let loose a flurry of Wave Beam shots into that Pirate, causing it to become a regular fly zapper, coursing with hundreds of volts. The other Pirate, however, saw this as an offensive opportunity and lunged toward Edd, who did not have enough time to counter…

_Ka-boooom!_

The Pirate was sent careening across the chamber in an explosion most profound! Flabbergasted, Edd looked down at the bottom of the chamber and saw Ed saluting him in a typical Space Outlaw pose; Ed had seen that Edd was in danger and had defeated his assailant with a flurry of well-aimed missiles.

"Oh, thank you, Ed!" cried Edd as he continued to circle around the room to the final ramp, the one that would lead him to the ground floor – knowing that the fight was not yet over, he kicked his Boost Boots into high gear in order to assist his friend.

"No problem, bucko!" replied Ed as he turned to the Space Pirate to his right.

…And it took him a few moments to realize that this was the very last one: the sole survivor of the Pirate assassination squad. That Ed and Edd had effectively defeated an entire battalion by themselves was incredible in and of itself, but something was a bit odd about this one trooper. Its armor was a tad…different in some respects. Instead of the night-black norm, its armor was tinted a deep crimson, and its sword an unusual shade of bright azure. Thinking nothing of it, Ed awaited its decisive strike, and knew instinctively that he would Grapple Beam it right in the face and fling it to the other side of the room if it made any sudden movements.

But instead the Pirate just gawked at Ed with its fire-red eyes, trying to figure out just what in the world this bipedal creature was…what this…_human_ was; in the next instant it turned to the other end of the room, where it saw Edd descending the ramp about twenty feet away, sailing toward their position. The Pirate turned to Ed once more, this time sporting a strange, disgruntled look on its reptilian visage.

"_Perntr hinntirrsh…kohmrehd?_" it garbled to Ed, seemingly awaiting a response. Ed, however, was utterly flabbergasted at its attempts to converse.

"Do not try to daunt me, alien commander-in-chump!" warned Ed, pointing an ever-astounding and awe-inspiring finger at the beast's face, unwavering in his bravery. "I, Ed, will not be fooled by your evil negotiation attempts, for you will then try to suck my brain out. I've seen it in the comic books, I did!"

The Pirate scoffed, spitting blackened saliva on the tiled floor. "_Perntr hinnitrrsh…kohmrehd…der edh hintirrsh!_"

In a flash, the Pirate leaped forward, much faster than Ed had anticipated it would, and grabbed the boy by the throat with its elongated reptilian fingers. This thing was quite unlike the other Pirates, it seemed! Edd noticed this as he sped toward their position, raising his arm cannon and trying to get a good Power Beam shot in, so as to distract the beast from harming his good friend.

"_You leave him alone!_" he cried threateningly as he prepared to discharge his mighty Power blast, zooming forward with his Boost Boots at a ludicrous speed. "_Ed! I'm coming! Hold on!_"

Ed tried to call out to Edd while trying to escape the beast's clutches, but it was no use – this Pirate was extraordinarily tough. With an abrasive cackle, the Space Pirate let go of Ed's throat and, before Ed could so much as _think_ of reacting, thrust-kicked him through the doorway that lead back to the cavern network, leaping after him with its azure blade outstretched.

And at that point, the monster's intentions had dawned upon Edd.

_"Nooooo!_" he screamed as he barreled toward the doorway, hoping to make it in time before the unthinkable happened! He had to make it…there was no alternative!

However, his efforts were for naught; the Pirate had forced the automated door closed and ran its sundering blade across its surface in an X-pattern, destroying its automatic function and rendering it all but unable to sense motion. A horrible expression of both terror and dismay overtook Edd's face before he crashed face-first against the cold, metallic surface of the door, falling back onto the cold, tiled floor…

From where he lay, he stared at the door.

Young Eddward stared at the door for what seemed like an eternity. Seconds seemed to pass…minutes seemed to pass…until he found the will to rise to his feet, slowly removing his arm cannon before he grasped the door's edges with his hands and tried with all his might to force it open.

His disbelief had reached the breaking point – now came the fury.

_"No, no, no, no, no, NO!_" screamed Eddward at the top of his lungs as he began to pound the door over and over with his arm cannon, doing everything in this physical being to get the portal open so he could reach his friend on the other side. He threw a barrage of bombs at the thing; he blasted it to kingdom come with his Super Missiles, his Wave Beam, and even threw the arm cannon itself at the thing! He rammed into it over and over with the help of his Boost Boots!

_No…there is no way I am going to allow this one…single…doorway get in the way of me reuniting with one of the two people I can trust in on this forsaken planet. There is no way I am going to let this…unsurpassable…abhorrent…horrid, vile, despicable, hateful, terrible door get in the way of me helping my friend fend off that cursed Space Pirate monster! _

_There…is…no…way…_

He fell to his knees and punched the door with all of his might…young Eddward punched the door over and over again until his knuckles were sore and bruised. The miles he had traveled, the perils he had survived, the ordeals he had been through…the ethical boundaries he had broken!

"_Ed! Ed, someone, open this door! Please! For the love of all that is good in this world, someone open…this…door!"_

_KRRRRAAAAASSSSSH!_

The chamber had gone black…as black as the all-consuming miasma of a moonless night. The power had been cut…cut like a power line in the midst of bustling city.

And as the glass shards trickled down from every level of the three story chamber, Edd could only wonder what fate had in store for him…because as a human being, that's all he _could _have done.

The entire world came to a stop as all twelve Metroids sealed within the research chamber simultaneously broke out of their containment tanks, each silently acknowledging the presence of a single Earthling in their midst…each silently acknowledging the life force contained within his being…

And with one final sweeping motion, they flew…their piercing shrieks ripping through the darkness.


	12. Project Titan

_**Chapter Twelve**_

_**Project Titan**_

"Oh, now what did I come in here for?"

It certainly had not been the first time Ed had found himself rightly discombobulated that day, though he seemed quite unaware that it just may have been the last. The stars revolving around his head swiftly dissipated out of sight as the alien world around him once again began to take form through a blurry haze of dizziness. In wistful confusion, he scratched his flat-top head, white flakes of dead skin flaking off through his hair, tumbling unto his green-jacketed shoulders as he tried to recall what had just happened…and why he was suddenly cold again.

"…Nah, I'm stumped!" he garbled conclusively – his mind had gone blank, so it was time to start off on a clean slate. He started off by reaching into his pockets, looking for his belongings and making sure that nothing was misplaced: his cherished gravy-cup seemed intact, and Sheldon Jr. was tucked away safe and sound...not to mention his preserved slice of toast, which he had saved prior to the "Ed-to-Go" scam earlier that morning...which he _did_ remember wrecking, as a matter of fact.

Come to think of it, he _was_ getting a bit hungry…how many hours had it been, after all? "Oh, good thing I brought some tasty rations! Yum, yum, yum!" He looked for just the right thing to cure his rumbling belly…

And so out came the toast, in all of its crusty brilliance! Ne'er before had the notion of sweet crunchiness been so alluring to a weary Space Outlaw, especially in these chaotic times. Eager to sink his choppers into his provisions, Ed reached into his other pocket with his right hand in order to find his gravy cup.

That, however, was when he noticed that something was devouring his arm.

"_Whoa! _…Oh, it is Russell!" sighed Ed in relief, gazing at his arm-enveloping weapon, an artifact that he often forgot was there in the first place. He gazed into its reflective sheen and saw his own image within, whereupon he checked his teeth and the ever-changing color of his tongue, as if he were getting up in the morning and making sure his face was on just right. "A-yup, face still working! Ready for take-off! Don't scare me like that, Russell…" he commended with a toothy smile. "Now if only we had a sack of…hello?"

He once again peered into his arm cannon's reflection and slowly reached up toward his own face, bewildered by the dull ring of purplish-blue surrounding his left eye socket. What was this? A black eye? When did he receive that? Did that mean Eddy was close by, aggravated as usual? Ed became quite excited at the notion.

Nevertheless, he probed at his eye in confusion, and rotated his arm cannon in order to more closely examine it. Whilst he did so, however, something else gradually became apparent in the mirror-image projected before him. It was a bit reddish in color, slowly growing in size while an accompanying _phoomph_-ing sound began echoing behind him…

"…Uh-oh…"

That's when it hit him like a speeding truck. Ed reflexively reached out, grabbed the piece of toast resting on the snow, and leaped forward from his spot just as a shimmering edge swung down and cleaved the very air where he sat. Holding onto his precious, parched dough, the befuddled boy swung his head around and beheld a rather familiar (if not unwelcome) acquaintance: donned in flashing crimson armor, the lithe Space Pirate assassin flicked its azure blade outward and walked stiffly toward Ed, the automatic door behind the creature resting in utter shambles. The alien did not sputter a sound, nor did it garble a gastrointestinal grunt, as the others before it often did…and yet, all the same, it did not take the B-movie-savvy Ed very long to realize exactly what this Space Pirate commando wanted from him…

…_It wants my toast!_

* * *

As Eddy would say, the only thing Eddward could see was _dark_. Lots and lots of _dark_.

But his hearing was far, _far_ less impaired than his sight.

Though he had only heard it once before, Edd easily recognized the shrill cry and felt it penetrate his body as it reverberated off of the chamber walls. There was absolutely no way that he could have forgotten it, either – the sonic terror was branded into his brain, seared into his subconscious, and he doubted it would have receded anytime soon. Such a screech could have only belonged to one nefarious creature, and when the noise began to build upon itself, he could only come to one conclusion:

Only a Metroid could have made such a noise, and there was not only one, but _many_…

_Just when I had begun to imagine how this chain of events could get any worse! _Edd thought as he felt a tidal wave of panic crash over his nerves. It was a familiar feeling, sure, though this one was different somehow; it was a primal fear. The very human essence within him cowered in fright at the screeching of the Metroids. _Oh, now that I'm thinking of it…I do remember seeing them contained within this chamber just before the power went out…why didn't I foresee this?!_

He clumsily fumbled about in the darkness, whirling his arm cannon all around in erratic fashion, the sensation that he was slowly being surrounded by the ghastly apparitions gripping at his throat. What was worse, he could not see a blasted thing, what with the power out, and the screeching grew louder and louder, building into a haunting crescendo of primal dissonance that threatened to push Edd over the edge of rational thought.

…And then it stopped.

Abruptly, too, and Edd quickly began to resent the silence almost as much as he did the noise. His knees trembled as he struggled to keep himself from passing out, the thought of making any sudden movements being pushed from his mind.

"Um…hello?" he uttered with a panic-cracked voice, the need to actually hear _something_ far outweighing the potential foolishness of giving away his location. He repeated this line at a slightly higher volume, and he began to feel his way around the room. Save for the pronounced _clink-a-clank_ of his boots against the tiled floor, the room was ever-silent. Brooding, as if the walls were gazing at the little Earthling kid fumbling about, trying to fight off the urge to panic…or go absolutely mad. But there _was_ a presence, and it was not exactly audible.

He felt waves pervading, rippling through the air, ripples in the atmosphere originating from different areas in the chamber. He knew for a fact that the Metroids had not miraculously disappeared; he definitely sensed them hovering about in a primal daze…could they see him in this darkness, even though he had previously established that they were eyeless?

_Undoubtedly…_ he conceded. He considered charging up a Power Beam shot in order to create a makeshift guide-light, but that would just serve to draw attention to his position more than he already had…and he would be lifeless in a heartbeat.

_Whummmm..._

"…Hmm?!"

_Whummm…clack!_

"_Yaaaaaah!_"

Edd spun around and jabbed his arm cannon forward, yelping in surprise at the abrupt reverberation coming from behind him. But instead of a threat in the form of a gelatinous beast, what he saw was…illumination?

Illumination, that is, in the form of a dim glow, modestly beaming forth from a large containment tank in the center of the room; he had noticed it before, but it had been previously impenetrable, so he had not thought much of it at the time. Within the glow, Edd could spy a silhouette taking the shape of a pair of goggles. The faint light coming from the opened tank seemed to be beckoning him, saying 'hurry...I'm here to help…take it before they notice my light…!'

_Whatever this is, the Pirates must have been crafting it…and it may be my only chance to make it out of here alive!_

So before the Metroids could catch on, he hastily lunged toward the containment tank and snatched the goggles from their pedestal; as soon as he did so, the glow of the tank receded, and blackness enveloped the room once more. With trembling hands he raised them up in order to discern how to put them on, but within seconds they had already vanished from his grasp.

_Drats! They've vanished!_ he thought, believing his trump card to have been a cruel trick by fate.

However, he became at ease when he realized that most of the other mechanisms he had found disappeared like this, and it was not long before a shimmering light momentarily filled the area before converging on his own visor…and then all went black again. Supposing this to be yet another mechanism that automatically upgraded his growing array of equipment, he quickly shuffled through his visor configurations…and when he did, he beheld the room in an entirely new light…or at least, an _array_ of lights.

It was familiar, too, for he had once constructed something like this back at the cul-de-sac!

Everything around him had become gloriously visible, to say the least…except in scattered blotches of reds, oranges, violets, and blues, covering the entire spectrum of warm to cold colors. Thermal vision, perhaps? Yes, that's what it must have been!

"Heat vision!" he whispered excitedly, unable to contain his gratitude. "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!"

The surrounding area was, appropriately, colored in dark blues and violets, signifying that the chamber was becoming quite devoid of heat due to the widespread power cut. At least his Varia Suit would sustain him.

_With this device, I should be able to navigate my way to the exit and escape the laboratory the same way I came in, _he thought as he glanced around the chamber with his renewed sight. _Alright, it seems to be working just fine. Now, let's see how…_

"By…Jove…"

Once again, words failed Eddward when he looked upward at the upper expanse of the chamber. Blotches of bright oranges and reds, with concentrated cores of pure yellow, swarmed around the room like haunting poltergeists. He counted them, one by one, with his trembling fingers… Eight, nine…twelve Metroids, fluttering in the air, circling his position like faceless vultures. These were not a rash bunch…they liked to brood, it seemed.

He would have to strike first before they became aware of his new advantage, and unfortunately Edd was not always willing to be the provoker in these types of situations. Nevertheless, he took a deep breath…and entered the proverbial gauntlet.

Within mere moments, a brilliant flash of light illuminated the research core, followed by a very-audible groan of disgust, and from the center of the room dropped the well-gutted husks of two Metroids, eradicated by two of Edd's well-aimed, consecutive Super Missiles. The other ten creatures immediately turned their attention to the boy on the ground floor, who was already taking careful aim at them and trying to pretend that he was instead shooting at carnivorous water balloons. Remembering the two-Super-Missile recipe for defeating these insatiable creatures, he swiftly activated his Boost Boots and skittered across the floor, making sure to stay in motion while he took careful aim at the incoming mind-munchers.

Two of the beasts took point and lunged hungrily at him, their piercing talons extended toward his face as their released their shrill battle-shrieks. The grating noise distracted Eddward, and thus threw off his aim quite a bit; regardless he still fired his destructive shots, hoping that they would connect. The first Super Missile struck the first Metroid, blasting open its gel-like cerebrum, whereupon its strawberry nucleus spilled onto the floor. The second projectile, of course, missed, giving the other creature enough leeway to scoot in for the kill.

Having prepared for the worst, Edd deftly maneuvered out of the way in matador-like fashion, causing the bull-rushing Metroid to crash headlong into the nearby wall. Its pincers burrowed into the metallic surface, the boy saw the perfect opportunity to fell the prone beast, but was deterred when he noticed three more of the monsters fluttering toward his position!

_Oh, when will the torment end?!_ he lamented silently as he quickly calculated his next maneuvers. _…Gracious, is it me, or am I sounding more and more like Jimmy?_

Jimmy was an upstanding young fellow, Edd had to admit, but the notion of comparing himself to the cul-de-sac's most notorious lightweight urged him to prove his own self-worth, giving the incentive he needed to distract the incoming swarm with one Super Missile while he generated a bomb in his left hand, rushed over to the wall-stuck Metroid, and placed the bomb neatly on its head. The resulting blast blew open its carapace and rendered it soundly destroyed, and Edd dared not look in that direction again. However, the two others never ceased in their mad rush, and Edd had little choice but to get out of the way with all speed.

_This is getting out of control…perhaps it's time for a bit of creativity?_

Thus, he forsook the tried-and-true Power Beam tactic and changed to his Wave Beam for some…experimentation.

_Ah, this should do nicely!_

His arm cannon whirring afresh with a radically different configuration, Edd took aim at the Metroid nearest him and unleashed a single Wave shot, which thankfully made direct contact. The Metroid, as expected, reacted to the electric jolt as any normal organism might – with jagged writhing and general…discomfort. Thus, his hypothesis tested well enough, Edd unleashed a tactic most profound and daring: he charged up a Wave Beam shot, but unleashed a _missile_ at the same time, hoping it would produce similar results to the Super Missile.

The resulting phenomenon had proven to be a Metroid-bane.

An erratic, shimmering arc of snaking electrical force literally _exploded_ forth from Edd's arm cannon, twisting and twirling outward like an insane worm-thing before latching onto the targeted Metroid. The jagged sensation lurching and churning his arm all about, Edd struggled to keep his own joints from detaching as he channeled unprecedented…no, _crazy_ amounts of voltage _directly into_ the Metroid's body at a rate that he could not even hope to calculate. It was like he had taken the violent reaction one gets when crossing an electrical current and _transferred _it into a weapon, an effective maneuver for sure, for it only took a few seconds for the Metroid to combust in a shower of gelatinous powder that scuttled all over the room.

_It worked? My word…it worked!_ Edd found himself conflicted at the notion of wielding such a destructive force…but anything to get him out of his current mess was totally acceptable. _It'll certainly leave me with a sore arm in the morning, but…_

The grotesque sight of splattered Metroid did not halt the attempts of the other beasts, though, and the remaining miasma decided that this Earthling simply had to go. Thus, when they all flew at Edd simultaneously like a trio of jelly-vultures, the boy had to ignore the churning feeling in his stomach and unleash the power he had crafted. Bracing himself, he once again combined beam with missile and unleashed another unrelenting torrent of electrical domination.

The radiance that burst forth from the resulting energy cascade completely overloaded his newfound Thermal Visor, of course, and thus he was forced to look away lest he be blinded. What he _could_ tell, however, through the violent reverberations in his arm cannon, was that the electricity coil had splayed into several different arcs, creating a web of pure voltage that had managed to entrap the remaining Metroids like flies in a spider-web.

There were shrieks, and there were squeals – coming from both the Metroids and Edd himself.

And then, there was powder. Lots…and _lots_…of powder.

…The chamber fell silent.

* * *

Moments after the shrieking and the buzzing stopped, Edd, unable to bear the unrelenting discomfort any longer, grabbed hold of his searing arm cannon and hurled it toward the nearest wall, where it proceeded to fall upon the floor and steam like an overloaded toaster.

"_Yowch! Hot, hot, hot!_" he shrieked in agony, flailing his arm about before placing it against the cold, metallic wall – his Thermal Visor was rendering his arm in a bright red color, which proved that the electrical heat of the energy arc he had just unleashed had superheated his arm cannon, which in turn had nearly fried his skin off. Nurturing his reddened forearm, he let his arm cannon sizzle feverishly on the ground for a while. "That was…_effective_. My _word_, that's going to leave a mark. I suppose I'll have to be extra-cautious when using this…'Wavebuster'..._yeowch!_

"…I suppose I've suffered worse, though," he sighed, thinking back to the "zappity-zap-zap escapade" that had destroyed most of his home last year – the electrical burns from _that_ edifying event had taken nights to recover from. "Now, I need to focus on getting out of this laboratory…and quickly, too."

From what he had just witnessed moments ago, Ed had been pushed back out into the caverns from whence he came, and the Space Pirate who had done so had followed him, destroying the automatic door behind it. Edd reasoned that Ed was duking it out with the thing at this very moment, and since he could not get through the door through which they went, he would have to leave the Glacier One laboratories the way he came in and find another way around. He immediately remembered the door out in the courtyard at the entrance of the laboratories; maybe he could find a way around it using his new Thermal Visor? That would probably lead him around the mountains and into the caverns, where he would once again meet up with Ed…hopefully for good this time.

"It's worth a shot," he said with determination as he cautiously blew on his arm cannon before picking it up and sliding it back onto his forearm, regarding the haunting burn-mark left on the chamber floor. "But how am I going to leave the room with the power out? The automatic door that I entered from must be disabled…unless…"

He activated his Thermal Visor once more and again beheld the cold-blue room. "With this heat-seeking visor, I should be able to easily determine the location of any power-conduits or circuit breakers…" he noted, eyeing the corners of the vast, multiple-story chamber. "…Ah, here we go!"

It was only moments before he noticed something plastered on the wall next to the door where Ed went through. As he approached it, he saw that it was a large, plate-like object rife with circuits and switches, covered by a protective layer of metallic grating. From there, a wire of sorts ran through the wall and up to the top floor, where Edd guessed it connected to the doorway. "Alright, this must be the conduit. With a bit of tweaking, I _could_ reroute the power supply to the door…all it needs is a little jolt." And so, with his ever-resourceful Wave beam, he injected several hundred volts into the conduit, and only seconds later, a faint _whirr_ began to sound within the chamber.

And then, a hopeful _click!_ from the top floor reaffirmed Edd's hypothesis.

"…That must be the door!" he noted with a smile. "Well, that worked nicely! Now to get out of this mouse-trap in one piece!"

And he would have to hurry if he were to catch up with Ed in time, and so with all speed, he activated his boost boots and silently zipped his way out of the research core.

* * *

"Unhand me, spawn of the netherworld!"

Ed struggled to wrest his arm from the Pirate's jarring grip, holding onto his toast for dear life but keeping a keen eye on the beast's well-polished assassin's blade – one stroke from that and…well, he could only imagine what would happen (and for someone with Ed's imagination, the possibilities were endless)! As he did so, the situation had once again become quite clear, and he remembered that he had just been separated from Edd – again! – and, what was more, there were several of those jelly-fish monsters contained in that huge storage chamber…and Edd hated seafood!

He definitely feared the worst for his friend, and would have tried valiantly bashing in the door with his skull had this one Pirate assassin not been so tenaciously _keen_ on beating him more senseless than he already was.

A storm of panicked conflicts welling up inside his hollow head, the boy swung his arm cannon at his foe's armored, reptilian cranium, though his efforts proved fruitless when the beast merely deflected the swing with its arm. In retaliation, and with the Earthling in its grasp, it swiped at Ed's head with its blade; Ed's reflexes were quick, however, and he retracted his head into his shirt in turtle-fashion to avoid the stroke. The clever boy used this distraction to wrap his grapple beam around the foe's ankles, an act that the Pirate noticed quickly and tried to escape from. Feeling the grip on his wrist temporarily loosen, Ed wrenched his hand free and bolted down the path and back into the large caverns he had often tread, toasty rations in hand. Remembering that he was indeed approaching the edge of a cliff overlooking an ice-crested lake, Ed braced for a valiant jump…

"Alley-oop!" he bellowed mightily as he performed his dashing leap of faith, landing on the frozen sheet squarely on his back. Luckily, his constitution was formidable, and he was able to rise to his feet without any problems, but not before he noticed that, upon his landing, the ice beneath him had begun to crack due to his weight.

Unwittingly, a trap had been set!

Not a moment too soon, either, for a rain of reddened plasma blasts had begun deluging all around him, prompting Ed to slide away as quickly as he could. He made a bee-line for the high-rising cliff at the other end of the expansive cavern, romping through the frustratingly deep snow until he could get his greasy hand on the wall leading up to it, whereupon he began his epic climb. "One, two, buckle my shoe…" he muttered rhythmically, holding his precious toast between his teeth.

_Ka-thump._

…

_Ka-Crrrraaashhh!_

"Dad's home!" blurbed Ed excitedly upon hearing the commotion behind him. He looked downward at the lake, only to see a vast, jagged hole where he had been sitting. The Pirate had fallen into his trap! "Inky, dinky, stinky you!" mocked the boy as he quickly returned to his task of climbing the wall, a task quite difficult with one of his arms encased within an arm cannon. As he scaled the wall, he had begun to hear a series of shuffling sounds below him, followed by a wild splashing noise…Ed looked downward once again and saw the Pirate, well-soaked but not any less predatorial than it was before.

Again, there was no scream or roar coming from this beast. Just silence…professionalism. This one was different from the others...

Apparently unfazed by the embarrassing hindrance, the Pirate leaped twenty feet across the lake like a humanoid grasshopper and grasped onto the cliff wall like a crazed monkey, where it proceeded to chase Ed upward with frightening agility. Cubelets of frozen sweat trickling down into the snow far below, Ed scurried in a panic up the cliff wall and mounted the cliff, where he forsook a breather and immediately barreled down the tunnel. He fired a few blasts over his shoulder to deter his foe, but his aim was so off that it had no real effect.

A torrent of light blinded Ed's vision for a moment, which was magnified by his visor, and an unwelcome rush of frigid air whipped his face, but he continued to run nonetheless – he was not about to be slowed down by a bit of sun, was he? After all, survival was of the utmost importance! The snow had begun to wane, and he found he was able to run faster, but in his haste he failed to calculate where he was going, and it was not long before the land left his feet…

"…Hm? Oh, look! Where did the ground go?" quizzed the loveable oaf, hovering in mid-air high above an expansive ravine.

Not even Ed could keep something so ludicrous up for long, and thus he fell down quite a distance until he crashed butt-first on a rather bumpy – if not prickly - surface; his eyesight adjusted to the sudden brightness of the outdoors, and he quickly noticed that he had landed on a makeshift bridge constructed of fallen tree-like objects, about thirty feet below the cliff he had just run off. Upon that same cliff, he could see the Pirate assassin regarding him from above, obviously preparing for an aerial strike!

"Uh-oh. It's a bird!" shouted Ed as he jumped to his feet, at a loss as to what to do – the brightness of the alien sun would prevent accurate aiming on his part, so shooting the Pirate was out of the question. This required a plan B, and therefore Ed did the first thing that came to mind: he dashed for the tunnel at the end of the bridge, only moments before the Pirate's blade impaled the spot where he stood.

He raced through the caverns, the predator closing the gap ever so quickly…and it was pure luck that he had not tripped and landed prone on his face. A zig-zagging path led him to a massive, frost-ridden cave nearly as large as the last one…arguably bigger. As he was growing quite used to such large locales, this would not have been a problem…had it not been for the treacherous, looming, thirty-foot _chasm_ separating him from a safe-looking sanctuary in the form of a narrow tunnel on the other side; there was no way even _he_ would be able to make that kind of jump, even with his Space Jump Boots.

"Uh…uh…oh no, I think I left my jetpack at home!" lamented Ed as he danced in place, an endless drop lying before him and a relentless killer closing the gap from behind…not to mention a shrinking window of opportunity!

"…Oh, wait! There!"

Aha! Ed's keen eyes just might have saved the day, for within moments he spied a viable point on the ceiling, in the form of a well-shaped stalactite, to which he could easily grapple onto and swing across. Victory was finally within his grasp, and perhaps even salvation from his horrible fate at the hands of this tenacious Pirate!

…But nothing was ever that simple, was it? For, once again, something else had impeded his progress, blocked him from the finish line that he had so long been searching for… T'was a being most foul, most detestable…

In fact, it sort of resembled a jellyfish.

* * *

He switched off his Thermal Visor, noticing that this area was not quite as dark as the empty, hollow hallways that he had just boosted through. Judging by his location and the number of rooms he had passed by, Edd was all but certain that he had just returned to the observatory. And lo and behold, there below him was the gigantic, astronomical diorama of the FS-176 system that he had studied earlier, in all of its marvelous glory.

_At long last! This means I'm making excellent time,_ thought Edd as his eyes darted about the room, making sure the coast was clear before he hovered down to the lower level. _It's strange, though… No Space Pirates to be seen anywhere. Not in the hallways, or even the Metroid laboratories. I suppose that's understandable, as I did wind up…dispatching many of them on my way through._

_ So that means they won't notice my alterations to their databases._ He hopped across to the other side of the chamber and proceeded to carefully make his way down to the bottom floor, where he knew the doorway leading to the exit was.

During his quick run through the latter portion of Glacier One, he had made it a point to double-check all of the terminals he had come across during his infiltration. With a treasure trove of precious Pirate data stored within his visor database, he had then made it a point to short-circuit the backup power source of each computer cluster within the research chambers, effectively rendering all of the Pirates' databases wiped out and irretrievable while _he_ made off with the spoils. Any Pirate stragglers would be unable to access crucial information, and probably would not be able to call of reinforcements, or even inform other Pirates of what was occurring within the laboratories.

Being friends with Eddy really _did_ have its benefits, after all.

_Pow-pow-pow!_

Alas, his escape was not to be as covert as he had hoped! Down from below, Edd witnessed a barrage of reddened plasma bullets whizzing upward toward his position, and in retaliation, he swiftly backed up against the wall and looked downward, seeing two wayward Pirate troopers glaring upward at his position.

_Stragglers! _he concluded, wincing at his unsavory predicament. _I forgot that I had snuck by that large group of Pirate researchers on my way through…oh, what a mess this has become!_ _Now that I'm thinking of it…I had better make sure that they don't alert the others!_

He had to be quick, lest one of them run back and summon the remaining personnel, and so, his mind working overtime yet again, Edd deftly vaulted across the chamber, distracting the Pirates as he launched a single Super Missile toward them. The blast's homing capabilities ensured the messy destruction of one of the unfortunate interlopers, but the other one had just enough dexterity to escape the blast radius, whereupon it immediately showered the upper levels with plasma. Knowing the Pirate was thoroughly distracted, Edd dropped down to the bottom floor and gave the nefarious creature a taste of the Wave beam's shocking properties, rendering it well-shocked and, eventually, quite lifeless on the floor.

With distaste Edd regarded the Pirate's fried form before he turned his attention to the task at hand. _Right, well, enough of that, _he thought, looking upward at the observatory. _I'd better make sure that the Pirates can make no further use of this. _He took careful aim at the activation console across the room and blasted it with a Wave shot; with a _crackl_ing noise, the array short-circuited, and the diorama above him fizzled out into the ether. He had to admit that he was a bit disheartened to see such a magnificent monument to astronomy simply dissipate like that, but he had no choice but to resume his escape. Time was of the essence, after all.

Within moments he burst into one of the larger laboratories, and his heart sank when he realized that it was the chamber that had previously housed over a dozen Space Pirate researchers. Knowing that he had to make his next move wisely, Edd first cautiously peered over the railing and to the second floor, but saw nothing…the room was empty, as far as he could tell.

"…Phew!" he sighed in relief as he found one of his more pressing concerns dispelled. _Seems the Pirates heard all of the ruckus from the other end of the lab and decided to high-tail it before I arrived. This will definitely save me some time._

But it was still aggravatingly dark, and so he saved himself some stress and activated his Thermal Visor.

_…Drats! I spoke too soon!_

Edd's heart began to race and he immediately had to fight off the urge to panic when the bright-orange silhouettes of a dozen Space Pirates came into view. Hanging hauntingly from the ceiling like ever-alert cave-bats, Edd could only guess that they _had_ heard about the battle in the research core and were waiting for him to show up – what was more, they must have been using cloaking devices, so as to get the drop on him. Maybe, from the reports they received about the confrontation, they had assumed Edd was some sort of super-warrior or something…

Boy, were they about to be disappointed…and perhaps shamed.

_Stay calm, Eddward…you've come this far…and this will definitely require tact…_ he thought as he anxiously scoped out the room, still hidden from the Pirates as far as he could tell. _I could jump down to the bottom floor and make a run for it, but that would be foolhardy – I'd be a trophy above a fireplace in a heartbeat. Plus, I can't just leave that precious data array there for the Pirates to use…_

He obviously had no choice: he would have to work his way through these Pirates one at a time.

_Best get the drop on them first._

And so, without further ado, he bravely launched a charged Wave Beam shot from his position to the nearest ceiling-hanging Pirate; obviously, being a trained assassin, the assailant was diligent and used the opportunity to drop down and lunge at the boy with its blade extended, but it did not expect that the blast would _home in_, and thus found itself writhing on the floor in seconds, rampant electricity coursing through its body and squeezing the life out of it.

This 'shocking' development caused the other Pirates to react quickly, dropping down from the ceiling and firing their energy weapons at the infiltrator. Edd would have had to have been a fool to take them all on at once (something that Ed had proven he was infinitely better at), and therefore thought twice, ducking for cover behind a nearby series of crates. He looked back down on the first floor, that mad dash for the exit seeming more appealing to him all the time, but then he noticed something he did not before.

_Is that…oh, why, yes it is! _he thought with a smile on his face that, upon realizing _exactly_ what it was, soon dissipated. _…Splendid…_

His keen eye had spied a single Metroid hovering within a lone containment tank on the bottom floor. Of course, there was no way Edd could forget his experience with this detestable species, though he came to the conclusion that, while it may have been overwhelmingly risky, it would give him the diversion he would have needed to escape...

_Plus, if memory serves me correctly, they seem to have an appetite for Pirates rather than humans…that could definitely work to my advantage!_ So, hoping he was making the right decision, he took careful aim and fired a Super Missile at the tank; the violent impact shattered the glass and freed the nefarious creature within.

There was something about a Metroid breaking free from its prison that just made one's heart sink.

Unsurprisingly, it was only seconds before the thing found itself gluttonously latched onto the nearest Pirate's face, and the other assassins immediately turned their attention to their subject, hoping that they would not be next. His window of opportunity majestically flung wide open, Edd immediately jumped down to the bottom floor and boosted his way to the door and down the tunnel, leaving the carnage behind and assuming that the rampage behind him would result in the destruction of the nearby computer clusters. Silently Eddward sped through the tunnel, his heat-vision guiding his path amidst the brooding darkness while he kept his train of thought focused solely on navigating himself to the exit.

The automatic door at the end of the hallway _whirr_ed open upon noticing his presence, and he blazed into the next room, Space-Jumping off of the edge and onto the first floor, whereupon he sped toward the doorway at the far end of the chamber.

_The entrance to the laboratory! _he thought, nearly crying this aloud as he noticed that he was now racing through the lobby of the complex…the end was near!_ No time to stall – so close!_

But this portal would not open, oh no, and Edd found himself crashing face-first into its unforgiving, solid surface. Clutching onto his aching head, Edd fought to remain conscious, muttering frustrated chants of "ouch, ouch, ouch!" as he did so. Adding to this headache, of course, was the incessant _beep-a-beep-a-beep! _of his visor's danger readings, a noise so aggravatingly annoying that he nearly wanted to chuck his visor across the room.

"Oh, will you _please be..._um, quiet?"

Upon turning around, Edd's seething anger quickly transfigured into fear. One thing was for certain: his visor had been pretty keen to catch the lone Pirate assassin swinging its vorpal blade at his face.

Edd's primal instincts practically forced him to duck down and boosted away from the slash, a surprised cry escaping his lips as he quickly struggled to reorient himself after a successful dodge.

"Drats!" he muttered to himself as he quickly found himself in a Mexican standoff with this final straggler, and he had no choice but to point his arm cannon as threateningly as he could at the Pirate, an act that was duly reciprocated. Obviously, Edd was hardly the marksman or the trigger-happy type, nor was he Josey Wales incarnate, so he knew he had the disadvantage. What was more, the exit was close, but not close enough that he could simply duck into it – this Pirate had him right where he wanted him.

_If only I had scouted out the area before I recklessly rushed through…_ lamented Edd as his mind struggled to find a solution. However, in this situation, even Edd had trouble figuring out a way to get out of this predicament alive.

_Whirrr-shick!_

But that uncertainty immediately dissipated when, all of a sudden the automatic door from whence he came swung open, and from its depths came a hovering figure most grotesque...and recognizable.

_…My, that was fast, _thought the boy as he watched the Metroid, which he had just unleashed in the previous laboratory, hover toward the awkward standoff. The thing never failed to nearly scare Edd out of his hat, but truthfully, the thing could not have appeared at a more opportune moment!

"Um, excuse me, Pirate, but I think we have a visitor!"

The Pirate took notice of Edd's incessant pointing, and so, curious as to what the Earthling was up to, it decided to look the other direction. Incredibly thankful that the Pirate had so willingly shifted its focus on something a bit more threatening, Edd used the diversion and bolted out of the room through the exit…while the Pirate fought a losing battle to keep its face attached.

And within moments, the final Pirate residing within the Glacier One laboratories fell, and the Earthling was long gone from the frigid corridors within.

For a born-and-bred suburbanite, the sight of snow was always refreshing and often signaled a welcome change of scenery…and indeed, for young Eddward, it could not have come at a better time.

The weary lad took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the fresh oxygen of Tallon IV as he sat upon a nearby crate, resting his weary legs as he looked back toward the imposing entrance to Glacier One. The automatic door that he came through swiftly locked itself closed, and the bluish light bordering its hexagonal shape slowly faded out to a lifeless shade gray.

_The door locked itself_, thought Edd as he brushed wayward snowflakes off of his eyepiece. _Which means the reserve power system has just failed. _He smiled at the notion, considering the magnitude of what he had accomplished...yet still daunted by what he had _yet_ to accomplish. _Looks like Ed and I have just shut down Glacier One._ _Of course, that doesn't mean the Pirates are finished in Phendrana yet. As far as I know, there's still one pursuing Ed. _

Every time he remembered that Ed was in danger, he felt a sudden rush of adrenaline that reminded him that he did not have much time to dawdle about. With two daring escapes to chalk up on his "Space Outlaw resume", he felt he at least deserved a bit of rest, but the situation would never allow it. _Right, now that I'm out of the laboratory, I'd better find a way to the caverns._

He regarded the door to the south, which had been locked when he first arrived in this courtyard. It was still held fast, of course, but now there was no other recourse – he absolutely _had_ to get through this portal. The first thing he did, of course, as he approached it, was give the thing a rundown with his ever-trusty Scan visor.

"…Well, not only is it locked, but it's not receiving any power. It must be wired to a separate generator to Glacier One's," he concluded as he scratched his chin thoughtfully. He noted that the shoddily-crafted, iron arch above the door seemed a bit unnatural for the area, which mostly featured Chozo-esque architecture. He gave this one a run-down, as well. "Well, it does seem unnatural. Actually, according to this, the top plate is even _more_ worn-out than the rest of the arch. I wonder…"

After a moment's consideration, Edd took a few steps back and he let loose a Super Missile against the metallic plate resting at the peak of the arch, which predictably shattered into thousands of fragments. As the smoke began to clear, he noticed that, in its place, there rested a broken circuit breaker. "Ah, there we go! Just like in the research core. Just a quick jolt, and perhaps…"

And, of course, he was correct! With a small jolt from the Wave beam's electrical prowess, the conduit _buzz_ed and _whirr_ed back to life, and within seconds the door _clicked_ and swung open at Edd's approach, revealing a rather narrow tunnel within its depths. "Yes! Alright, no time to lose…the caverns await!" Knowing that his goal was now very much within reach, he jogged down the ice-laden corridor, which stretched off toward the direction of the billowing pillar of smoke in the distance, where Ed's escape pod resided.

* * *

"…Hey hey, quit it, will ya? Why don't you just…_gah, hey, stop it!_"

It did not take long for Eddy to come to the conclusion that, unlike those thick-headed Pirates, there was to be no negotiating with _jellyfish _monsters. The beasts lunged at him, still ravenous even after their glorious feast of Pirate personnel and wanting dessert in the form of a pre-teen megalomaniac, but they failed to realize that when faced with a panicking Eddy…well, you just can't catch the guy.

Within seconds, he had decided against trying to fight against the face-leeching monsters, instead diving down to the bottom floor where the Pirates' bodies were in order to evade them. There was no _way_ he was going to stick around and fight them off! Those things would definitely suck his brains out, just like in Ed's stupid comic books! So he did the only thing someone like Eddy would do in such a situation: he ran.

Well, that is, he ran as far as he could, all the way up to the entrance of the area in which the creatures were previously contained. His visor's danger readings were blaring off the hook at this point, though he could not figure out why: the exit was just over on the other side, and a jagged stalactite from the ceiling would definitely be a great thing to use his Grapple Beam on; he'd just have to go all Indiana Jones in order to get over there. So what was the danger?

Well, when he overlooked the ledge he was situated on and into the chasm below, he learned _exactly_ why being hasty was going to get him killed. "What the…what _is _that stuff?!"

Filling the shallow trench between him and salvation from the jellyfish monsters behind him was a writhing sea of cobalt webs and azure-black ores, crackling and fizzing with radiation and sending his visor's calibrations into a literal frenzy. He did not recognize it at first, but Eddy definitely remembered seeing that stuff within the tanks that contained the mutated Space Pirates…heck, he even remembered seeing it growing out of the mutants themselves.

_Forget that! _he thought, his mind pretty much made up when he considered just how nasty-looking that stuff seemed to be. _That junk'll ruin my shirt! There's gotta be another way outta here!_

His eyes darted about the chamber, and even though he tried desperately to locate a door or a tunnel that would lead him in any direction other than forward or backward, he knew that time was running out, and he would sooner become jellyfish food before he found a safer way.

…_Oh man, I can't believe I'm gonna do this._

This was it. He _had_ to get across this treacherous pit or risk getting his face sucked into oblivion. So, with a gravelly, desperate scream that only Eddy could emit, the boy shot his Grapple Beam toward the stalactite hanging high above the trench, hoping to the powers that were that it would connect. Luckily, he had predicted his toss well, and the electric-blue coil magnetically attached itself to the pointed rock. Then, with a running start, Eddy jumped off of the ledge and swung across the pit of certain death.

"_Yeaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaah!_" he shrieked triumphantly, looking back at the befuddled floating monsters, which pursued him across the pit at a rather sluggish pace. "_Geronimo, babyyyyyyyyy!_"

As he reached the defining moment of his swing, Eddy deactivated his Grapple Beam and launched himself toward the ledge at the other side of the expanse, where the door he had previously seen lied in wait for him. _C'mon, baby! C'mon!_

…And of course, his swing fell short.

With a gut-wrenching _ka-thunk!_, Eddy landed chest-first on the ledge, but at an angle that caused him to lose balance and slip downward into the trench. Desperately, he grabbed hold of the edge with his left hand, eager to do anything but fall into that pit of cobalt pain.

"No-no-no-no-no…" muttered Eddy in a quiet panic as he fought to pull himself up before the jellyfish reached him…or before he fell to his death due to sweaty palms! "Agh, come _on! Come on, come on…_one, two…_gaaaaaargh!_"

With a final effort, Eddy swung his legs upward and managed to get his left leg upon the ledge. At that point, he had just enough balance to pull himself up and onto the grating, where he hurriedly rolled into the automatic doorway. The portal closed off as soon as he did this, and he heard the crashing and squealing of jellyfish on the other side.

"…Huh! Should've…thought-a that…in the…first place!" panted the worn-out loudmouth as he rested against the wall in a state of utter bewilderment. He had experienced some close calls in his day, and many times he had found himself at the receiving end of fate's cruel hand, but he was positively _stoked _that he had dealt the better suit in that last hopeless scenario. He brushed off his shirt and sat there until he regained his composure…this took a while, to be sure. "Well, I should'a known they'd be no match for Eddy the Great… Now, where was I going?"

As the last droplet of panic drained out of Eddy's system, the boy came to the realization that he was trying to find a way out of this Space Pirate death-trap, and that he had no time to lose lest they catch up with him. What was more, he was equally willing to put at _least_ ten miles between he and those hovering monstrosities in the previous chamber. With bolstered confidence and a once-again normal heart rate, Eddy steadily rose to his feet and resumed his solemn trek through the desolate Phazon Mines. If his surroundings were any indication, he seemed to be approaching the actual _mines_ section of the complex…perhaps he would not find any more Pirates down in this sector?

"Pshhh, yeah right. I think Ed would grow a chin before I got outta this dump," scoffed Eddy as the question buzzed through his ever-scheming mind. As he passed through the dank, empty hallways of the Pirate complex, Eddy could do nothing but converse with himself about where Pirates would most likely be, a trend that he eventually caught on to. "…Am I talking to myself? _Man, _that's weird…must be going nuts or some…_thing!"_

Alas! Eddy had not even finished that last word before he found himself on the precipice of a premature death at the hands of the insidious cobalt substance! A tantalizing portal lay before him, yes, and he had been lured by its promise of escape, but instead of a welcome mat laid out before it, there was a small gap containing the nefarious ore he had seen before. Luckily, he retained his balance and stepped over the small crevice, checking his Space Jump Boots to make sure he did not get any on him.

"What kind of a welcome mat is that?" murmured the boy in frustration, becoming tired at the blue substance's ability to fool him so easily. Heck, he honestly did not know whether the stuff truly _was_ as dangerous as he thought it was, but again, there was something about it that gave him a chilling feeling…something that instinctively told him to _keep away_. "You'd think those Space Idiots would run a tighter ship around here. Come to think of it, where _is_ everybody? I thought this place was supposed to be the _café au lait_ of Space Pirate Land…

"…There you are! Been lookin' everywhere for you!"

It had gotten to the point where Eddy had embraced the sight of an elevator with open arms, because even though they may have been leading him into depths even darker than he could have possibly imagined, there was an equal chance that they would also be directing him toward the inevitable exit that he believed was waiting for him. The layout was the same as the other elevators, of course, so there was nothing new to learn. Using his knowledge of the previous elevator, he approached the nearby terminal and proudly slammed it with his fist.

_Access to Phazon Mines Level Three granted_.

With this text splayed across the terminal's miniscule monitor, Eddy knew that he was indeed destined to descend deeper into this nefarious complex. Accepting this inevitability, the boy waited for the elevator to whirr to life – within moments, he was on his way down, another level of Space Pirate madness at his back, and another level of unimaginable monstrosities likely awaiting his arrival.

…_Hey, look at that – it's the floating thing again!_

The nearby window allowed Eddy to once again take note of the expansive environment presiding outside of the mines. The scenery was unchanged, of course – he was still overlooking a vast crater of proportions that still boggled his mind to no end. But, even more importantly, he could see the gargantuan slab of raw earth that hovered directly above it; a monolith standing half a mile high, he could only wonder what resided within, or what its purpose was. But for now, he could do nothing but remain utterly baffled and in awe of its sheer majesty.

…_Man, this planet is freaking weird._

* * *

"I knew all of that research had to amount to _something_…and well, I suppose this is it."

Seeing what was unfurled before him, Edd could not help but exhale slowly and come to terms with what fate had so graciously presented him.

Put simply, the area that the previously-locked portal had led him to was inexplicably _huge_ – likely more massive than any clearing he had witnessed in all of his travels on the surface of Tallon IV, which supported his reasoning that this was the Pirates' "workshop" of sorts. He stood upon a cliff edge overlooking a snowy dome that surpassed the dimensions of the Roman pantheon – the place, he noticed, even _resembled_ the pantheon, what with the large, circular opening at the very peak of the ceiling. Carpeted with an ornate, untouched blanked of wintery-white, the area was indeed solemn, laced with a reverential atmosphere comparable to the monoliths he had once witnessed at the Chozo ruins…the Sunchamber at that site was indeed a good comparison to what he was faced with now. It had the same grandiose feel to it, and it did quite a good job of making him feel insignificant.

He was overlooking the chamber from the west, and his map indicated that, in order to get to the caverns where Ed was imprisoned, he would have to walk along a path leading southward – and, lo and behold, a cliff of equal height to the one upon which he stood was several hundred meters away, though he could not make the jump over to it even if he tried. Even then, that was not the most interesting aspect of the place.

_That _particular honor, of course, went to the ridiculous conglomeration of boulders sitting scattered around the chamber – literally dozens of them, to be exact, as if they were part of an unfinished monument to an Easter Island Head. Were the Pirates trying to construct something out of this rocky mess? Edd could not hope to understand the mystery from where he was, so he carefully dropped down to the cave floor and approached the center of the area, where the rocks seemed most concentrated. From where he was, he could not even see the other end of the chamber – truly a testament to the magnitude of this place.

"Very intriguing," noted the boy as he carefully shuffled his way through the contained wasteland, regarding the vast array of boulders surrounding him – some of them, he noticed, were at least five times his size! "I've never seen anything like this, this large collection of rocks. Is this what the Pirates were devoting all of their attention to? They seemed to go to a great extent to block this place off from intruders, anyway…

"…But why _boulders_?" he continued, trying to scan the monoliths surrounding him, but with no luck – there was no data to be obtained from simple, everyday rocks, now was there? "Is this part of an unfinished project? I have to admit, this is completely _baffling…_" He chuckled at the thought of Ed's past attempt to conjure a scam of his own, based on the _Curse of Evil Tim_, in which Edd had to sift through a similar array of rocks.

The boy stood there, pondering the possibilities and trying to piece together exactly what the Pirates had recorded in their studies in Glacier One. He knew he had to catch up with Ed as quickly as possible, but still, _this_ was _it_. This _had_ to have been where the Pirates were using all of their research resources! This had to have been their so-called workshop. His visor even identified the place as a "Quarantine Cave", which explained why the place was sealed off…it all _had_ to denote importance, did it not?

"…Well, even if it's unfinished," sighed Edd, looking around a bit more. "I should at least spend a moment or two trying to figure out what the Pirates _intended_ on doing here. Maybe I'll start with…um, hello?"

Edd swiftly turned around, a wave of apprehensiveness coming over him. His eyes darted all about the chamber, keen to identify who had just dropped in on his location…but there was nothing. A presence had just fluttered past him – was it shifting snow? A falling icicle? "Who's there?" he called nervously, checking his visor's threat-detection radar, which simply read blank. "…Strange. I could have sworn there was something…"

He activated his Thermal Visor and saw exactly what he expected – lots and lots of blue and purple. Nothing. He was as alone as he was when he had first entered the cave.

"…What a bizarre sensation," mumbled Edd, scratching his head as he returned to his deliberations. "Now, time for – _excuse me!_"

He twirled to his immediate right and pointed his arm cannon in that direction, definitely sensing the presence of an interloper – however, there was nothing here, either. His visor _explicitly_ indicated that there was absolutely _zilch_ within a one-mile radius of his position – his Thermal Visor indicated the exact same thing. It was becoming truly frustrating…but even more frightening.

"Ehm…m-maybe I should get going," admitted the boy, his nerves wracked with apprehensiveness as he began shuffling toward the southern exit. "After all, Ed _is_ waiting for…me…"

But Edd found himself unable to move another step, either forward or backward, or in any direction, for that matter. In fact, he found himself unable to utter a single _word_, or even question the rationality behind what was happening before his eyes. Indeed, his progress had been impeded by a single, solitary rock.

A floating rock, to be precise. Hovering lifelessly, yet aware, a common, fist-sized rock had forsaken its ground-bound destiny and simply decided to float up to eye-level, say "hi!", and have a staring contest with an Earthling.

_…This is not good, _were the only words that fluttered across Edd's mind, because when it came to this kid, "irrational" was synonymous with "bad."

And how right he was: the situation only became worse, for it was not long before, one after the other, the remainder of the rocks and boulders gained similar sentience and began levitating hauntingly in the air. Now, this was more than enough to arouse Edd's interest and fright, but there was something that puzzled him even more: after several seconds of hovering lifelessly around him, the rocks had suddenly, though slowly, begun to converge on each other, seeming to link up telepathically and create objects that somewhat resembled…limbs?

It was not long before Edd was able to spot a rocky arm from within the maelstrom of rocks, followed by an easily-discernable leg…and then another arm…

The trend continued and Edd kept backing away, unwilling and, frankly, unable to intervene, until every rock and artificial limb came together and constructed something most unexpectedly monstrous. It was an unmistakable form: a golem had been constructed before his very eyes, and in a matter of seconds, as well. Standing tall and stalwart in the center of the gargantuan cave, the fifty-foot humanoid monolith stood apathetically still, not even noticing the Earthling's presence…

The scan visor took over.

_Morphology: Thardus_

_An animated, sentient creature of stone charged with Phazon radiation. Confined to the Quarantine Cave for several cycles, the Thardus is the result of Space Pirate experimentation with Phazon and non-living matter. The chaotic nature of Phazon irradiation leads to instability in its structural integrity, which, along with innumerable research personnel casualties, has led the Pirates to postpone the experiment until it could be properly tamed or discontinued._

_Project Code Name: Titan_

As a terrified Edd struggled to find a face within this creature's Olympic form, he had come to the realization that _this_ was the result of the Pirates' deliberations in the Phendrana region; _this_ was the power of the Phazon substance…the Great Poison that had proven to be the end of the Chozo race.

"…P-project Titan, indeed," stammered Eddward, a young Earth-boy in the direct company of a civilization-killer.

A deep breath…a long exhale…

_…Alright, get a hold of yourself, Eddward,_ thought Edd, struggling to stop himself from trembling incessantly at the sight of this monstrosity…at the sight of those gargantuan _fists_ and those gargantuan stomping _feet_. _There has to be a solution…there has to be a way around this geological giant…think, think, think!_

He did think: he thought back to his pivotal confrontation with the Flaahgra beast back at the ancient Chozo ruins much earlier that day, and remembered how it, too, had been a creature horribly transfigured by the mutative properties of Phazon. He remembered how he had struggled to down the monster, a feat that he actually ended up accomplishing at the end of it all, though he had sustained injuries that still had not quite worn off yet. He had done it within minimal equipment, too, with his brain as his greatest weapon.

And he could do it again, right?

_Well, I have to start somewhere…_ he conceded as he beheld the terrible titan in all of its earthly might. Thankfully, it seemed to be rather unaware of him, perhaps due to his comparatively diminutive size. _I'll have to deal the first strike…I had best put it to good use, too. _He cycled through his options, trying to map out the best course with which to catch this creature off-guard. After a few moments of consideration, he finally decided on something concussive…something with a _bang_ to it – the Super Missile – with which to blast a hole in the creature's seemingly unstable form.

_The idea, then, will be to break this monster down until it can no longer function on its own,_ he thought, considering the endless possibilities this strategy could open up if the initial strike prevailed. _So I'll need to dismantle this monolith piece by piece – right, I've got it!_

Anywhere would do, he thought, so he decided to aim at the monster's legs – best to impede its movement, right? And so, after about five seconds of careful aiming, Edd let fly his decisive strike, the recoil launching him back several feet and onto his butt. The Pirate-destroying missile barreled through the frosty Phendrana air and struck the Thardus' left kneecap dead-on, a deed that Edd fully knew would send rock and sediment hurtling in all directions, handicapping the beast so as to give him the advantage and the time he needed to map out an even better strategy. "Yes!" he cried triumphantly.

…But, nothing.

Not even a budge.

"…Pardon?" muttered a bewildered Edd, at first not believing what he was seeing, then slowly coming to grips with the fact that his trump card simply _had not worked_ against this particular monster. "…_What?!_" He began backing away, his brain scrambling to think of another strategy. Under normal conditions, he would have considered such a thing a minor setback, but not this time – he had just blundered his opportunity.

In retaliation, the once-stationary and unaware conglomeration of rocks and boulders reacted like a freaking whip – it swiftly turned its rapt attention to Edd, brought its hands up into two fists, and then smashed them on the snow-covered ground with titanic might that Edd could not even begin to calculate. The seismic shock that reverberated throughout the Quarantine Cave nearly caused the walls to cave in on themselves, and would have easily knocked Edd to the ground (and perhaps unconscious, at that) had he not smartly used his Space Jump Boots to avoid the recoil. He landed back down, his eyesight obscured by the vast sheets of snow shot up in the air by the violent tremor.

"Egads!" cried Edd, shaken at the realization that this Thardus was just as violent as its brutal appearance indicated. Now that it was fully aware of his presence, it was time to be on the move. However, he soon found that, to his dismay, he couldn't quite do that. "Uh…what's this? I'm _stuck?_" In confusion, he looked downward at his feet, and screamed aloud when he saw that his entire left leg had been caught in a thick stream of ice originating from Thardus' position!

"Drat!" he cried as he tried to brush away the ice and escape. Fearing for the state of his leg, he activated his Thermal Visor and saw that the appendage was still retaining its regular temperature – luckily, the Varia Suit would sustain him.

However, it would probably not sustain a freaking crazy punch to the face by a wrecking-ball-sized fist.

Nevertheless, he also noticed that, obviously, the room was completely cold, displayed in a dark violet hue. Edd looked toward the Thardus and saw that it was also displayed a cold color, being composed of unfeeling _rock_ and all. However, he _did _notice something quite peculiar within the boulderish mess that comprised its left arm.

One rock seemed to be much higher in temperature compared to the others. _What in the world? I didn't notice any heat coming from the rocks when I first entered the cave_, mused Edd as he looked at the creature's form, trying all the while to get his leg out of the ice. _Wait a second…yes…that's it! _ A proverbial light-bulb shimmering brilliantly over his head, Edd saw his window of opportunity fly open! Thus, with all speed and hardly taking the time required to aim, he launched another Super Missile at the Thardus, and more specifically, at that particular rock. Thankfully, the shot connected, and the resulting explosion encompassed most of Thardus' arm – moments later, the Thermal Visor began to overload with heat, most likely exuded as a defensive maneuver by the beast. Reacting quickly, Edd switched off his Thermal Visor and gazed at the titan with normal eyes.

…_Yes! My hypothesis was correct! It really was Phazon ore!_

Alas, the rock that he had struck was but a ruse, and was really a protective layer covering a thick slab of cobalt Phazon ore! That must have been one of the "joints" holding the golem together – with that thing down, the Thardus would definitely collapse…or at least knock it off its balance enough for Edd to get in another strike.

The Thardus, of course, seemed to realize its vulnerability as well as the Earthling's cunning, and in retaliation, it went on the offensive: raising its hands high into the air, the monster gathered massive heaps of snow from the ground and telepathically formed them into wrecking-ball-sized spheres. When it clenched its fists, Edd could hear a _c-ccrack_ing noise reverberate from the summoned orbs, which doubtlessly meant that they had been hardened to steel-like density. With a swift point of its elongated finger, the Thardus sent the spheres careening at Edd with frightening speed, intent on blasting him out of existence in one fell swoop.

_Oh dear! Not good, not good! _thought the boy, his mind racing quickly as he began charging up another Power beam shot, intending on transfiguring it into a Super Missile upon launch. _Oh, blast you, you nefarious ice! Melt! Melt!_

With a final tug, Edd was able to pull his leg free from the icy prison, and in the nick of time, as well, allowing him to boost away from the titanic projectiles. In retaliation, Edd fired one more Super Missile at the exposed Phazon ore – Thardus attempted to catch the projectile with its other hand, but undershot its reach, and the Super Missile collided victoriously into its target.

With a resonant _kkkkrrraaashhh!_ the cobalt rock shattered into glassy fragments onto the snow-carpeted floor of the Quarantine Cave, and the fifty-foot golem staggered limply to its side, utterly thrown off its balance and rightly disoriented.

_Yes! Excellent shot!_ thought Edd to himself with a grin. He knew he had succeeded, but not permanently – as he had learned from his confrontation with the Flaahgra, it would take much more to wear this giant down. And he was proven right: the Thardus, obviously not throwing in the towel just yet to a measly Earthling, assumed a different sort of tactic: the golem began to curl up, hedgehog-style, into a veritable ball, resembling a fifty-foot-tall _boulder _which began to roll straight toward Edd's position.

There was no way he was going to have the time to stand back and sort this out – the thing was coming for him, and he had to _bolt…_which he did, of course, as he kicked his boost boots into high gear and zoomed away as fast as he could. The Thardus' rolling maneuvers were quick, though, and seemed to home in on Edd's trail very easily, as if it had been pre-programmed to do so.

_Alright, think quickly, Eddward!_ thought Edd as he quickly resorted to zig-zagging in order to throw the Thardus off – a tactic that did not work as well as he had hoped, for the monster seemed dead-set on his location. _You need to stop this thing's incessant rolling about! How to go about doing it, though?!_

Never afraid to try something new, Edd generated a bomb in his left hand and hurled it over his shoulder, hoping that it would land into the Thardus' path and be run over. When the resounding _boom!_ sounded from behind, he knew that his charge had made contact, but not with the force required to convince it to stop its death-roll.

_Well, you know what they say about trying the same thing over and over again…_ he mused as he generated another bomb. _…and expecting a different result…_

Hoping that it would work eventually, he gathered a few more and hurled them behind – he then noticed that the Thardus began actively dodging them, obviously seeing them as a real threat. Edd saw this as an opportunity and went to generate one more bomb, but – horrors upon horrors! – he gave way to a misbalance in his boosting technique and fell clumsily to the snowy ground, flat on his face.

…And with the Thardus fast-approaching, there was no way Edd was going to be able to rise to his feet fast enough to evade its rolling tirade! Thus, seeing no other recourse and desperate for a result, he generated one more bomb and prayed to the powers that were that it would be enough to deliver the decisive blow. He sat up and, with all of the upper-body might he could muster, hurled the explosive into the Thardus' path…

_Ka-booom!_

Success! Edd could hardly believe his own eyes, but with that one explosion, the Thardus recoiled backward and returned to its original humanoid state, its balance thrown off again. This, of course, was not exactly the _best_ possible sign, as it could have easily smashed him into a pulp from where it was, as he _was_ within its arms' reach, but what _was _fortunate was that a fragment of Phazon ore had been exposed on the monster's right arm! Edd had no time to waste, as the Thardus began lifting up its arms, definitely intent on smashing him repeatedly into a fine paste. As a reflex, Edd launched yet another Super Missile at the monster's arm, the resulting blast sending the giant toppling backward, its arm in disarray – still functional, but still in disarray – amidst the shattered fragments of Phazon rock. He was whittling the thing down, and staying alive, to boot…not a bad record.

…_Perhaps I'm not insane after all,_ thought the weary boy with a smile, quickly getting up and backing away, never taking his eye off of the Thardus – with both of its arms wounded, it was only a matter of time before this thing would decide that it had had enough. _I only have to outlast the Thardus a bit longer…_

But…that was when something shifted.

He had expected it to shift, of course – he knew that even the Thardus, a collective of _rocks_, would not take lightly to being shamed by an Earthling. But the initial change was not exactly in its mannerisms, but in the atmosphere.

…_Is it me, or is the air becoming slightly…warmer?_

That was not the only thing. Something else within the room had undergone a transition. The area became slightly darker, as if nightfall had finally come. The air smelled a bit staler, too, as if the fresh winter life had been sucked out and replaced with something artificial. Whatever it was, it made Eddward feel wildly uncomfortable. If this is what a cat felt when it was rubbed the wrong way, then he could definitely understand its unruly reaction.

He looked to the Thardus for answers…and he was not alone, for the Thardus was looking for answers, too.

That was what it looked like, at least. With its rocky, makeshift arms lifted high into the air and on its very knees, the titanic golem looked…hopeful, yet distant, like a lifeless puppet forced into a position of reverence. Faceless, but hopeful, as if it were calling for deliverance, for divine assistance. Like a distraught man caught in a rainstorm, with his dreams and hopes washed away in the maelstrom, this humanoid monstrosity, powered by a planetary corruption that had slain an intelligent race…was beckoning the sky to assist it. There was an audible cry, too – the grinding and shifting of boulders coming together to make an echoic voice that prompted Edd to get as far back as he could…and wait to see what would happen.

…_Ka-CRASHHH!_

A flicker-flash of blinding light shimmered before Edd's very eyes in a bolt, accompanied by a deafening clap! The boy screamed in fright, his heart in his throat as he instincts took over and forced him to run…

_Ka-CRASHHH!_

Another strike from the heavens, only a split second after the last!

_Ka-crasshh-ka-crasssshh-ka-crasshhhh!_

Within mere moments, Edd found himself in the midst of a blinding, deafening maelstrom. The Thardus' braying calls to the Talloric sky had been answered with a fierce, sky-shattering thunderstorm, the lightning-strikes of which impaled the ornate ceiling of the snowy pantheon, crashing down all around the dome, defying the laws of winter-weather. At an utter loss and at the receiving end of nature's sword, the young Earthling fled the constant torrent of lightning, the deafening roar of unearthly thunder crashing throughout the chamber and deafening him to all other occurrences – he could not even hope to think!

"_Mother Nature herself has turned against me!_" was the only possible explanation as to this phenomenon.

…And the Thardus. Oh, the Thardus, with its titanic, ungodly roar echoing forth from the center of the raging monsoon… it gawked at Eddward, its eyeless, emotionless body directed toward him, perhaps infuriated at the fact this small being had the _audacity_ to defy its incredible might…or even frustrated at the fact that something _so measly_ could stand up to something so majestic. Whatever Edd was looking at, it was the personification of frustration…misunderstanding…bewilderment…corruption.

This was a tantrum that moved the planet, and Edd finally knew what was causing it.

…_Is this what Phazon is capable of?_ wondered the boy as he witnessed the might of a continental thunderstorm compressed into a fifty-foot area, holed up at the very edge of the room, hoping he would not be struck down by the force summoned by this nefarious Space Pirate creation. He could only stare in wonder at the results of fusing one _substance_…with a bunch of _rocks._

_Ka-CRASSHHH!_

A vibrant flash of radiant light had suddenly blinded Edd's vision – a bolt of lightning had struck within ten feet of his hiding spot, rendering him in a state of near-shock that rendered his ability to think mostly moot. The world began to move in a state that altered between slow-motion and real time, and as he looked upward, he could only watch as three snow-boulders barreled directly toward his position. Struggling to regain his composure and fight off unconsciousness in favor of _life_, he bolted away with his boost boots, doing all he could to stay clear of the raging storm, at the center of which was his target.

_Uh…I…I have to stop this! _thought the boy, shaking his head side to side, trying to reorder the workings of his brain as he charged up another Super Missile shot, activating his Thermal Visor so he could determine where the monster's weak point was located. Thankfully, it did not take him long to see that his next target would be at the beast's centerpiece – its "heart", most likely…the thing holding it together. _There…disrupting that will surely dismantle this monstrosity…_

_Ka-crassshh!_

Edd had been so enraptured in his thermal study of the Thardus' weakness that he had failed to notice one final boulder hurtling toward him, which made direct contact with the left side of his body and sent him hurtling about thirty feet across the chamber, where he landed face-first in the snow with a _whump_.

Knowing that his Varia Suit would do more than enough to prevent any lasting damage, Edd carefully rose to his feet, realizing that there was to be no laying about with the Thardus on the loose. Therefore, he immediately turned toward the titan in order to make sure he didn't lose his target. Thankfully, the thing was still presiding in the center of the dome, and thus Edd decided to get on the move again in order to confuse it and get in a good shot…but he soon found that he was not going anywhere; his entire lower body had become trapped in another sheet of ice.

_Drats!_ he thought as he frantically wrestled to get himself free, hoping that the Thardus would not do what he thought it would at this point. Thought it would have been a great strategy on its part, he was desperately wishing that it would forsake being smart in order to give him the edge he needed to get out of this alive. Apprehensively, Eddward looked up toward the center of the dome…

…And he shrieked aloud. The Thardus was being smart.

As he witnessed the beast roll toward him like a fifty-foot-tall steamroller, Edd finally entered full-on panic-mode, clawing and smashing the ice that encased him with everything he had, using generated bombs to try to blast himself out, using missiles to try to destroy the ice stream…using _anything _to get himself free before he became 'Eddward the Wafer'! _Ohhhhhh, dear…this…is not…good…_

But he had to calm down, lest he assuredly face certain death. First off, there was no way he was going to be able to throw bombs that far, and with the beast approaching fast and with him unable to move, he found himself in a deadlock...heck, even a lose-lose situation. After all, in order to stop the monster, he had to shoot the weak point indicated by his Thermal Visor as it rolled…

_And, judging by its rate of approach,_ he thought as he quickly charged up what could have been his last Power Beam shot. _I'll only have…one or two shots before I'm…um…best not to think of it, actually._ Knowing that he did not have much time to take careful aim, Edd had to follow his gut and fire his first Super Missile at the beast's rolling form, which was about fifty feet away from his frozen position. _Right, fire one!_

…

Contact, but no damage. The weakness had been missed.

_Oh, drat, drat, drat! Please…please…please let this make contact…please…!_

…_Fire two!_

…

As soon as the explosion took form, the Thardus tumbled out of its ball-form and collapsed on the chamber floor, its Phazon ore exposed by Edd's successful Super Missile. With the beast struggling to regain its stability, Edd knew that this was the moment of truth – a single, accurate shot would most likely do the beast in, and he would be home free. _Right…Power beam, charge…charge…oh, please hurry! _Eddward looked up and watched in horror as the titan rose to its boulderish feet, struggling to stay in a coherent form, looking downward at the boy who was getting ready to dismantle it for good.

…But there was to be no more patience for such defiance, such intolerable rebellion against such a profound display of raw might! With a silent fury, the Thardus _slammed _its hand down on Edd, utterly destroying everything that had to _do _with the boy beneath its palm…crushing the Earthling's frail, inferior form like the insignificant speck he was.

…And all grew silent again.

The thunderstorm rumbled off into naught but silence. The air became cool and tame again, and rich with the essence of winter. The sky slowly shrugged off its paltry veil of grey, making room for the perpetual, winterly overcast that overlooked the Phendrana region.

The torrents of frigid winds died down. The golem did not budge.

In fact, it merely waited – waited for the surrounding snow to cease its shifting about – waited for everything to be perfectly silent again, for there to be an absolute peace before moving again – the golem itself was a part of nature, after all: pure and silent. Its titanic hand remained flat in the snow, its kill still crushed beneath its unfeeling, lifeless palm. Slowly, in incremental movements, it began to retract its hand into a tight fist, gathering its prize and heavy heaps of snow within its grip as it slowly stood up straight beneath the vast hole in the ceiling. Apathetically, it looked at its clenched, three-fingered fist, held up to where its face must have been – or at least its center of consciousness. As its grip shifted, snow began to trickle out through the cracks in its rocky fist…but there was no blood yet. The titan became curious as to the appearance of its crushed target.

Thus, it slowly and patiently unfurled its fingers…and beheld the insignificant remains within.

…

_…Now!_

_ Ffff-sccchzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!_

At the moment the Thardus' fist opened up, a searing torrent of electrical might _exploded_ forth and unto its Phazon-cold heart! With his left hand gripping onto the Thardus' thumb for support, young Eddward kept his mighty Wavebuster locked onto the beast's vulnerable centerpiece as it staggered back, its core overloaded with unbelievable amounts of pure energy. The vast multitude of rocks and boulders that comprised it began to falter, crumble, and sway, and with a resounding explosion of sediment and glass-fragments of Phazon ore, Edd knew that he had done his deed – the core of the Thardus was overloaded to such an extent that there was to be no return, so he immediately let go of the titan's thumb and dropped down to the snowy ground far below, landing on his back with a soft _ploomph_.

There was no time to waste, though, for the danger had not entirely passed yet! His heart pounding madly, Edd looked over his shoulder and witnessed the mighty Thardus fall to its gargantuan, stony knees, its monolithic arms swaying limply at its sides as the large Phazon rock at its core trickled down into glass-fragments. Predicting an imminent collapse, Eddward quickly activated his boost boots and sped far away to the other side of the dome as the mighty result of the Titan Project fell back to the ground where it originated, its final collapse sending a resounding quake throughout the Quarantine Cave…and all of Phendrana.

* * *

_Ka-thunk!_

"_Ouch!_"

Edd immediately grabbed hold of his head in pain, looking downward at a stray rock that had sailed through the air and had bonked him straight on the back of the head. This, of course, prompted him to turn around and regard the rubble that once comprised the mighty Thardus. In fact, the scene looked practically identical to how it did when he first arrived in the Quarantine Cave – a snowy field speckled by a collection of random-sized boulders and rocks.

"They won't even know I was here," commented Edd with a faint smile, brushing off his snow-ridden Varia Suit as he checked to make sure that neither equipment nor bone was broken. "With their insidious 'Titan Project' dismantled, I doubt the Pirates will be willing to resume operations here, thanks to _moi_…" He dismissed the shaking in his legs, trying to keep his mind off of how incredibly close to death he had just been, though the last hour had done much to reiterate the fact that, upon meeting up with his compatriots, he was going to take a back-seat to all of this violence.

He sighed, though, as the possibility of rest still seemed quite far-off. "No time to waste, though. I have to get to the caverns and help Ed before that dastardly Space Pirate gets the best of him…"

He had begun walking off toward the southern exit when he noticed a faint shimmer in his peripheral vision. Looking back toward the cluttered remains of the Thardus, Edd _did_ in fact spy something – a hovering artifact, glowing in silent repose where the titan's heart may have been. A new addition to his arsenal was always welcome in these troubled times, of course, so Edd was quick to touch it.

…And as a familiar light began to bathe his entire Varia Suit in vermillion brilliance, Edd could not help but wonder whether he had just been granted a piece of Pirate technology…or Chozo technology. Was this a subsystem that had been installed into the Thardus itself, or was it planted here many years ago by the ancient civilization that Edd had studied during his travels? He could not hope to find the answer so easily, so he waited for the flashing to recede before gazing downward at his armor.

The color and shape of his outfit had not changed, of course, nor did its function – what _had _changed was the design, if only slightly. All across his suit raced sharp lines of subtly-glowing green, spread out to every corner of his body, from his fingertips to his toes, from his elbows to his kneecaps. New decals, mayhap?

"Quite an elaborate addition!" remarked Edd as he eyed the fruits of his scannings, reading up on the new subsystem that had just been installed into his rig. "Let's see here…it appears that this particular artifact has installed a magnetic system throughout my Varia Suit that, when activated by crossing ones elbows together, will energize my suit with magnetic energy, enabling me to…become a…human magnet?"

He deactivated his scan visor and chuckled at the thought, approaching the southern exit of the Quarantine Cave as he mused about the concept. "Human magnet…how silly…"

But alas, here was to be a test of his newfound prowess! As he had noted quite a while ago, the wall leading up to the path he needed to take was too high for him to reach with a Space Jump, but there appeared to be another way. Before him lied what appeared to be a magnetized rail, extending upward from the ground floor all the way to the top of the cliff. "Ah, this must be what this mechanism is used for…well, nothing wrong with trying it out, right?"

Edd then did what his scan results had told him to do and crossed his elbows together, whereupon a slight _hummm_ began to reverberate throughout his entire suit. With the lines coursing throughout this outfit suddenly glowing a radiant emerald, he touched his left hand to the rail, and found that he was suddenly tugged forward. In fact, he found that, upon moving up completely against the rail, he could maneuver upward along it, as if he really _were_ a human magnet. "How…bizarre..." cried Edd as he carefully climbed up at a perfect ninety-degree angle, in disbelief of the feat he was performing. "Yet…oh no, this is brilliant…!"

In fact, it was only within moments that he reached the top of the cliff overlooking the dome. With another cross of his elbows he deactivated the subsystem…the 'Spider Magnetism', as his visor called it. Not only could he more clearly see the remains of the titanic beast that he had confronted (and dismantled, to boot!), but he could also see the path before him, leading to the south and into the caverns… Truthfully, it was darker than he imagined. Fitting, perhaps, for who knows what awaited him within the darkest depths of the Phendrana Drifts?

But it did not deter this young man in the slightest. In fact, if anything, what he had just been through had done nothing but strengthen his conviction.

"Right, well, no time to waste," concluded Eddward, once again brushing off his Varia Suit and making sure that every piece of equipment was intact, a process that did not take long. "Hold on Ed, I'll be right there!"

And the darkness of the path enveloped him…as he traveled to the edge of Phendrana.

* * *

"Oh, this must be the neck-sucker from 'I Shrunk the Planet Invaders from Gaflar X: the Remake'!"

What a horrid apparition! What a dastardly demon! A specter most foul had arisen before Ed's boggled eyes in a form he _thought_ he had seen before…and yet, he could see that it was something new. Ed assumed it vaguely resembled the jellyfish creatures he had seen back in the Pirate research facility, but this was…truly bizarre. It was more lopsided and appeared to have been mutated in a way that made it resemble an amorphous blob rather than a spherical creature. It hovered about, emitting garbled wails as it facelessly noticed Ed.

Knowing, however, that he had to get this thing out of his way lest he become target practice for the Pirates' edge, Ed raised his arm cannon, intent on clearing it out of the way so he could escape the assailant from behind, but this beast was far too quick! It rotated itself, turning the opening at the bottom of its body toward him, from which a trail of light snaked forth and leeched onto his arm cannon, much like his own Grapple Beam. With the force of a whale upon a fish hook, it began to pull him forward, and Ed had to resist.

Thinking quickly (or at least some Ed-ish equivalent), he used his own Grapple Beam to latch onto the creature and dragged it toward him. He grasped its oozy body in his left hand, thinking of cutting off its siphon and hurling it as hard as he could toward the bottom of the chamber, and perhaps chasing it down with several missiles. However, something occurred to him.

"Wait!" he cried in disbelief as he heard the Pirate's footsteps behind him. "My brain is working!"

Killing two birds with one stone, Ed immediately turned around and hurled this distorted Metroid beast straight at the Pirate behind him – not seeing such a crazy act coming from nearly a mile away, the Pirate took the beast in the chest like a cannonball and flew backwards, dazed. With both threats down for the count, Ed turned his attention to the obstacle before him: with no way across the room, he would have to make accommodations. The massive stalactite on the ceiling looking mighty useful, Ed acted quickly by slamming his head against the nearest wall.

And lo and behold! The reverberations throughout the chamber caused a crack in the stalactite's holding, whereupon the titanic rock crashed down to the chamber floor, its broken edge creating a veritable stepping stone straight to the other side! "Hey-hey, works for me!" he cried as, with a one-two jump, he found his way across the chamber in seconds flat.

He had no time to dither about, though, for the tell-tale _pat-a-pat_ in the snow behind him told him that the Pirate had resumed the chase! Knowing that he was probably no more capable of fending it off than he was before, he had no choice but to flee even deeper into the caverns. Luckily these paths were not as laden with snow, so it was much easier to maneuver, but Ed quickly became confused as the tunnels began to take unexpected turns, becoming a real maze. At one point he was sure that he had lost the Pirate for a moment, so he took a path that led to a tunnel leading upward into the upper portions of the caverns, which he did not exactly recognize. This tunnel was more snow-laden than the others, and as he ran by, something caught his eye.

"Whoa…" he noted as he slowed to a stop, his eye perplexed. "I see something shiny!"

A faint glimmer shimmered from within the snow along the rightmost wall, and Ed almost did not see it amongst the white snow surrounding it. Curious, he looked down and grabbed a hold of it, pulling it out of the snow. Now, this looked truly bizarre: the object in his hand was pretty big compared to the toast he was also holding, and was translucent in color, shaped sort of like a clock without a frame. Hearing the Pirate captain catch up with him, he quickly pocketed the strange artifact and continued his sprint down the hallway – maybe he could give it to Edd as a Christmas present…in July.

He jumped out of the tunnel and into a room glazed over with ice. He slid across the surface and crashed into the wall at the end. He looked at the wall and screamed at the sight of his own reflection. He looked back to where he had come from and noticed a grand opening in the wall overlooking a giant chasm: ah, now he remembered! He looked upward and saw a massive hole in the top of the room; this was where he had crash-landed on Tallon IV in the first place! "Oh, oh! I remember now! Yeah-ho, and _that_ is where I got knocked into my happy place." Ed took note of the slight crack in the icy floor, where he had been concussed by the seismic earthquake that had struck the planet shortly after he had first landed.

A subsequent sound, however, turned his attention behind him, where Ed immediately got up upon seeing the Space Pirate that had so diligently kept up with his antics. Now at a dead end, the boy found himself with nowhere to run, and perhaps no other recourse but to take this intergalactic space scum in an interstellar duel of crazy proportions.

Ed gritted his teeth nervously and pointed his arm cannon at his long-time assailant, shoving his toast into his pocket for safe-keeping. The boy panted nervously and adjusted his pants – it was now or never…no more running away. It was time to stand up and be what he always thought he was on the inside…

"…Would the mighty Space Outlaw from Planet Earth be strong enough to defeat the extrasolar assassin and make it back to Earth in one piece?" narrated Ed quietly to himself, sweat trickling down the side of his head as he fought off all doubts as to his own potential…no matter how grating they had been. "Or…would he fall prey to the might of the evil Space Pirate commander, who has chased him through the cosmos in order to fight this _one…battle…?! _What would happen to his friends, whose lives are in his very hands?!_"_

There was only one way to find out. With a courageous battle-scream resounding from the top of his mighty lungs, brave Ed raised his mighty arm cannon Russell and made straight for the Space Pirate commando before him… toast and all.


	13. Into the Gravity Well

_**Chapter Thirteen**_

_**Into the Gravity Well**_

The art of trapping a boy like Ed in an enclosed space and trying to subdue him with brute force or intimidation was as sensible as taking on a bull in a fist fight; if one didn't know the nature of his adversary, the result was almost always pain, followed by regret, followed by everlasting night. This little theory could not have been more accurately ascribed to this kid, who had been poked fun at by his peers but never seriously threatened, for every denizen of Peach Creek maintained amongst them an unspoken law: "never, _ever_ give Ed a reason to become upset, and if you do, _never _stick him in an enclosed space. For if you do, he will barrel toward his adversaries with eyes of blazing fire, and a mind bent only on the destruction of anything in his path. And all you'll have is a face in the pavement and stinging bruises all over your body."

The creed was never that verbose, but it was an apt way to put it. If they would have seen the trail of broken-bodied Space Pirates left in Ed's wake on that particular day, rest assured that they would not have been in the _least _surprised; "that's just like Ed," they would respond.

And Ed would say, "oh, wait a second, guys, let me add one more to the pile!"

One more relentless Space Pirate - the last of Glacier One's security force, no less. A trophy to be had.

"Away with you_, interloper from another world_!"

No sooner had Ed declared his intent to wipe his Space Pirate pursuer off the face of the planet had he let loose his fully-charged Power shot with the intention of blowing the thing's hideous head clean off its shoulders. No doubt the Pirate had been taken aback by his abrupt change in tactics – cowardice to courage, mayhap? Or was it simply foolishness that had stricken the boy? Perhaps the latter, but what this assassin did not understand was that this Earthling was _all about _being an idiot, and was not afraid to show it.

_Ffffff-shhhhhhack!_

What should have been a precise head-shot had turned out to be quite the opposite – in one swift motion that defied sight, the Pirate averted its own fate by raising its blade and cutting Ed's blast in_ half_, whereupon the two severed globs of energy careened past its head and straight into the reflective cave wall behind; Ed's mighty trump card quickly became a sickly-yellow splatter-stain.

The boy blinked once and wondered whether he was going a little overboard with this 'imagination' thing.

"…Whoaaaa…" he marveled, jaw agape. Nowhere in his vast stockpile of B-movie VHS tapes had the sinister alien assassins _ever_ cut the Space Outlaws' energy blasts in two, let alone with a glowing blade! "I think my eyes are broken…!"

They certainly were, for he had failed to notice that the Pirate had shifted to the offensive, charging straight toward the boy and leaping at him, contorting its skeletal body and whipping its leg at his fish-face in a menacing roundhouse kick. With his stupidity in full swing, Ed's instincts had no choice but to take the wheel, and he bent his body backwards far enough to avoid the jaw-shattering strike by half a foot.

A second later, his battle-ready brain took control, and not a moment too soon, for his eyes instantly beheld the Pirate's lightly-armored chest – the word "weakness" flashed through the cavern where his mind should have been. The night-black chestplate may as well have had a target painted onto it.

"X marks the spot!" he Ed, still bent backwards but fully intent on blasting the Pirate to kingdom come, as he went to point his arm cannon at the Pirate's weak point. However, his opponent was no slouch, either, for it had raised its blade and plunged it straight for Ed's heart at the exact same moment. The oaf had no choice but to parry the strike with his cannon, but in doing so lost his balance and clumsily wound up on his back.

But he was not about to lose his chance at a quick victory, oh no! The moment he made contact with the icy cave floor, he let loose a single missile, which the deft Pirate dodged with a swift backward leap. The missile sailed onward, though, and struck the ceiling far above, jarring loose a myriad of glassy shards from the ceiling, which rained downward toward the black-eyed boy.

"_Toothpicks!_" screamed Ed as he rolled deftly aside and dodged what could have been a messy fate, the icicles crashing beside him only moments later. "Ah, teeth saved!"

He smiled for a moment or two, his brain once again temporarily shutting down and venturing into dreamland while his exasperated instincts took control once more. Knowing that the Pirate had been about to take advantage of his prone form for a quick kill, Ed whipped his wrist outward to his left, his Grapple Beam snaking out at whip-speed and wrapping itself three times around his assailant's ankles.

"Whoa-ho! I got you now, do-no-gooder!" guffawed the oaf through a victorious smile as he excitedly jumped to his feet, the Pirate caught in his torturous trap and sure to meet its end within moments (as all of its comrades had when wrangled in Ed's intergalactic lasso!). With a valiant cry of "down we go!" Ed violently tugged on his end of the energy-rope, sending the Pirate onto its face.

Or at least that's what he had been expecting.

In fact, the Pirate budged not. Instead of being jerked forward and crashing face-first onto the thick sheet of ice upon which they dueled, it regarded Ed with genuine curiosity, its head tilted to one side like an animal who did not understand the commands of its owner. It seemed more interested in what the Earthling was trying to accomplish rather than threatened by his attempts to bring it down.

"…Huh?" was the only thing Ed could utter as he realized that yet _another _tried-and-true tactic was put to shame by this tenacious Pirate. "Oh, you must be an uber-evil boss alien. The leader of a _vaaaaaast_ army of do-no-gooders! I get it now, ah-huh!"

Ed was the type who believed that repeating the same technique ad nauseum would yield eventual results, and was not about to give up on his always-trusty Grapple Beam clincher. "Well, Mr. Space Boss's face, prepare to meet your _face_! Uh, in the _ice_!"

He tugged again, his arm-joints crackling at his strained attempt to knock this opponent down.

But again, nothing. The Pirate cocked its head to the opposite side, probably more amused than confused at this point. Was it trying to insult the boy in an attempt to coax him into hasty attack, which would no doubt be easily parried by its shimmering blade? Whatever it was trying to do, Ed would have none of it! Nobody spat in the face of a fearless Space Outlaw and lived to speak of it!

"_Loopgalooo!_" garbled the suburban superhero as he grasped the rope in his very teeth and pulled back like a shark on a fishing line, the entire weight his body moving in the other direction, eventually bursting into a full sprint – it felt more like he was trying to pull a steamroller than a Space Pirate, that was for sure, because this thing simply would not go down. But still, why wouldn't _another _tug do the trick? He pulled again for the final time…

_Shink!_

A sudden change in momentum sent Ed hurtling backward toward the edge of the cave with frightening speed as the Pirate suddenly cut the energy rope with its shimmering edge in the midst of his pull. Completely baffled as to how his favorite technique failed so miserably against what should have been a normal Space Pirate, albeit with fancier armor, Ed slid across the ice on his green-jacketed back until his flat head collided straight into the equally-smooth cavern wall with a rather satisfying _ka-thunk!_

"Whoa…hello, wall!" postulated Ed as he rubbed his aching cranium, gazing at the mini-stars orbiting in and out of sight in wonder. He thought he saw his face reflected in them for a moment. "Hello, Ed!" he cried excitedly.

His delusions did not last long, though, for when he was in danger, Ed had a tendency to be ever-vigilant. "Oh, right! I see you, assassin!" Jumping straight upward onto his metallic-booted feet, Ed pointed his arm cannon forward and made the finger-motion necessary to launch a shimmering super-destructive-and-always-works-missile.

But before he could even complete the split-second combination, the Pirate appeared before him in a blackened flash, grabbed onto his trusty weapon with its scale-encrusted, tri-fingered hand, yanked it straight off the kid's forearm, and cast it aside like a piece of worthless scrap metal, where it bounced and skidded across the chamber, out of Ed's desperate reach.

_Plink…plink…plink…_

The sound was a shrill death-sentence to Ed's ears.

"But…but…I, uh…!" stammered the weaponless monobrow, raising his hands in a mixed gesture of immense fright and surrender as his mind desperately scrambled to comprehend what had just happened and where his odds of survival had disappeared to. His eyes darted to his arm cannon Russell, then to his assailant, then to Russell, muttering hapless gibberish all the while…

His garbled queries were promptly answered with a close-up gaze down the ashen barrel of the Space Pirate's plasma rifle, and the chamber eventually fell silent as the prolonged skidding of the boy's arm cannon ceased.

"_Ennahshrr Phedreyshn pehsht…"_ the Pirate growled in a gravel-laden rasp as it studied Ed's fear-stricken visage with an even mix of curiosity and sheer enjoyment, attempting to speak in Earthen tongue. Probably so the boy would hear something familiar before he met his end. "_Krosht leikk hah-warvm untirr aurk ahrmerrt phutt!_"

Ed's eyes remained fixed on the puce-colored swill, dribbling forth from the edges of its jaws with every annunciation, though he still heard the Pirate's words – what was more, his science-fiction-saturated brain had actually processed most of it, a rare occurrence indeed. His mind was a deformed colander through which only very specific materials could pass; alien-speak was one of 'em. In response to the assassin's statement, he looked downward at the reptile's bare, near-skinless feet, naturally coated in ash-black scales. He looked upward again and fearfully gazed at the Pirate's monstrous face.

"Hey, wait a second…you only have _three_ toes!"

And the Pirate bared its teeth in what had to have been the most unsettling grimace Ed had ever laid eyes on.

* * *

There was something about jogging down a corridor of pure white toward the arctic ends of the planet that made Edd feel more than a tad uneasy.

Granted, nothing had drastically changed about the aesthetics of the environment – the snow was as white and powdery as it had ever been, the dreary clouds that obscured the Ooromine sun remained both omniscient and indifferent to the world below, and Edd's fatigued, frantic breaths still fogged up his own visor more often than he liked. But as the lone Earthling traversed the vast southern mountain ranges of Phendrana, one question never failed to poke and prod at his engine of a brain:

_Will I make it in time?_

The answer, of course, repeated itself on his very tongue with every hastened step he took into winter's blanched storm:

"Yes, I will. Yes, I will. Yes, I _will_!"

Though his task was of the upmost importance and demanded his full athletic effort, Eddward had taken the necessary precautions in order to ensure that he was not getting in over his head (as if he already wasn't). His visor's map system had been programmed to track his every move and therefore made a digital record of every step he took – this would prevent the boy from losing his way, and relieved him of the stressful task of navigating his way out of Phendrana's wintry expanse when the time eventually came to depart for warmer pastures.

_And hopefully,_ thought Edd as he carefully slid down an icy hill on his protected posterior, now about a kilometer or so south from the Quarantine Cave. _I'll be leaving with company. Thankfully, my Thermal Visor will make the task of locating Ed within these frozen lands much easier._

When he finally slowed to a stop at the bottom of the vale, he jumped to his feet and wasted no time in propelling himself forward with his boost boots until the area narrowed off into a winding canyon of jagged cliff walls and snowless stone ground. As he sped onward, a single image remained emblazoned in his vision: an upward-rising smudge of blackened soot in the sky that never seemed to come any closer even as the yards flew by and the minutes passed.

_I think I can smell it from this distance,_ noted Edd, though he had to be conscious about doing so, an act that nearly caused him to crash headlong into an upcoming canyon wall, which he only ended up swerving around thanks to his visor's danger sensor blaring something along the lines of "_Edd, what are you doing, you maniac?_" Deeming his boosting to be too dangerous in such a zig-zagged area, he deactivated his boots and jogged the old-fashioned way…which, incidentally, was not something he was too proficient at. He lost his breath in seconds.

Thankfully, he did not have to trek very far, and slowed to a hastened walk as the path began to open up, until eventually it ceased being a trail altogether. As Eddward slowly maneuvered toward the precipice of the cliff he had suddenly found himself standing on, he began to take in what his visor had poignantly identified as the 'edge of Phendrana.'

_My word…well, it seems this is going to be a bit trickier than I thought…_

It was no wonder he was becoming more cynical with every passing minute, because frankly, he could not have been more correct.

Though the expansive range of white-capped crags that arose before him, stretching far into the foggy horizon toward Tallon IV's south pole, were jaw-droppingly picturesque, they also looked like an adventurer's deathtrap, where explorers and diehards went to perish under winter's frigid breath. What was more, the column of escape pod smoke that he had been seeking seemed to be billowing forth from within that very range…maybe a mile or so in, maybe less, but there was no way he was going to trek through that alpine trail and come out alive. Even the Alps seemed more tourist-friendly, he thought.

Of course, that was not even the worst of it. That precarious 'honor' went to the hundred-foot _drop_ far below that silently begged for him to fall prey to a clumsy misstep. Peering off the precipice, Eddward could only shudder at the expansive trench separating him from the remainder of the beckoning Phendrana range – even after straining his eyes and adjusting the optic parameters of his visor, he could hardly see the watery bottom below, the depths of which he had _no _intention of falling into.

_I doubt my Varia Suit would be able to handle those kinds of temperatures!_ he worried as he examined the trench further, knowing that even with a running start, he was _not_ going to be clearing that trench, because 1.) he did not have the required physical ability and 2.) he did not have the required _guts_.

The way down, though, did not look nearly as fatal as he had first thought – upon further inspection, he could make out a series of thick branches sprawling across the trench like a natural bridge. Further down, below that, he could spot another one…and another…heck, enough to cushion a clumsy fall, should he be cursed by one.

_Ah, I see now! _marveled Edd, yet another proverbial light bulb shimmering brilliantly over his nimble noggin. _The only way I'm going to get to Ed's landing site is if I travel beneath the mountains instead of over them. In order to do that, I'll need to locate a cave within the trench wall that will lead me to the path I seek…_

He rested his expansive chin on his wrist as he scanned the wall of the canyon far below…

_ …Yes, just as I thought! _he affirmed with a victorious grin, a thin stream of icy breath flowing from his dental gap._ There, forty feet below, at the end of that bridge – that's my destination! If my calculations are correct, that cave should lead me away from this area and directly under the mountains. That would save me some treacherous footwork, as well as precious time._

Though he had located just the kind of pathway into the range he had been seeking, there was no _way_ he was going to risk jumping down into such a looming chasm, even with his Space Jump Boots – he'd sooner dance and romp on a no-trespass lawn in Peach Creek! Thus, he did the next best thing that came to mind: attaching the end of his Grapple Beam to the outcropping edge of the cliff, he slowly rappelled down the northern wall of the trench, ever so cautiously and actively forcing himself not to look downward…or upward, lest he pass out like he so often did in rope-climbing-oriented gym classes.

_Slowly…slowly…that's it…_ he thought, his entire body a-tremble with fright as he inched downward into what increasingly felt like the maw of a titanic earthen monster – he half-expected a gargantuan tongue to arise from its depths and knock him down into the endless throat of the planet. _Slow and steady wins the race, after all… Ah, there we go. Seems close enough._

Surely enough, the entrance he had been seeking rested about fifteen feet below his position – he'd have to leap toward it from where he was, as there were no boughs that would catch his fall at this height. Thus, in a carefully-planned maneuver, Edd flicked off his Grapple Beam and, as soon as the bluish sparks of energy dissipated into the Tallon air, thrust himself off of the frozen wall and toward the cave entrance, where he landed oh-so-not-very-gracefully on his stomach, gaining naught but a mouthful of snow for his troubles.

With a righteous _plaahgg!_ Eddward let fly the white, wintry delight from his maw and wiped his face free of it, as well. Readjusting his signature black hat, he rose to his feet and waited for his eyesight to adjust to the darkened path before him, opting not to make use of the Thermal Visor just yet – it would only yield a pure-blue corridor, after all.

"Well, all in all, that worked nicely," he admitted, inhaling deeply and again repeating his goal in his mind before taking up a slow jog into the grotto. Again keeping his left hand against the wall as he went so as not to lose his way (or his balance), he risked using the boost boots again, as the path seemed linear enough to warrant it. Actually, to his great relief, the trail eventually led him to an outside path, where the brightened Phendrana sky graciously illuminated the trail before him.

_Ah, very nice! _he thought thankfully, shielding his eyes with his hand but keeping pace all the same. _At least I can see where I'm going..._

_Wait, a second…is it just me, or…oh, don't tell me…don't tell me!_

Well, fate did not need to tell him anything this time – it was too gradual to notice at first, but as he continued his jog, he noticed that the path had become narrower and narrower with every step, until he was faced with a sight most unpleasant at this point in his journey: a hole, no smaller than a mailbox, at that. He gawked at the miniscule opening in disbelief, reaching under his visor and rubbing his eyes to make sure he was not experiencing snowblindness. And yet it remained.

The phrase '_Eddward in Wonderland'_ whizzed through his increasingly-cynical mind.

_Well, at least the path hasn't completely closed off_, he admitted, scratching his chin in thought as he pondered how in the world he was going to get through that hole without having to remove his bones first. He turned around and briefly considered finding another way through the mountains, but he had already decided that there was no turning back now that he was so close to meeting up with Ed – the left and the right only yielded his own reflection, transfigured and warped by the jagged texture of the ice. And before him…the hole of ever-shrinking dimensions!

He let out an exasperated sigh, seeing no other recourse. "Well, if I can make it into Jonny's room through a hole in _his_ wall…" he admitted, stifling a retrospective chuckle as he slowly crouched down and began working his way into that impossibly-small mousehole. "Where's Ed and his reckless strength when you need him? Ugh, look at me. Am I really saying this…?"

How he did it, nobody would ever know – it could be said that even _he _would be unable to recount how he managed to fit through that ten-foot-long claustrophobic nightmare. Therefore, there would never really be an effective narration of how young Eddward ever worked his way through that thing. One would sooner fall victim to a random black hole in one's bedroom, or be sucked into a nearby soda can.

His journey was not without discomfort, though! With anguished grunts and aggravated cries of "hey, I'm _stuck!" _and _"waaaaagh!_" he shuffled toward the glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, its ever-tantalizing brilliance fueling his desire to live as well as his desire to see a chiropractor. Minutes later, he finally burst forth from the snowed-in hole and crawled out, his bones and joints screaming in agony and wanting, plainly, to die. Eddward immediately rolled over onto his back and entered a fit of hyperventilation, gripping at his own throat in an attempt to fight off an extreme bout of claustrophobia before moving onward and outward.

With thousands of nerves to calm, it would be a while.

"…No more…no more…of _that_!" he stammered resolutely, his will to move utterly shot as he simply let his face be pelted with thick, wet snowflakes for a moment or two. "Honestly…I'm beginning to think that simply going _around _the mountains would have been a better idea…! I swear, I will never enter an**other m**ouse-sized hole such as that for the rest of my days…"

_Rrrrrrmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…._

It was gradual and therefore unnoticeable at first, but eventually Edd had come to the realization that the immediate area had been stricken with a rather curious tremor. However, from where he was, the quaking served as a well-deserved massage for his aching bones, especially after such a terrifying ordeal, and instead of panicking, he remained on his back and simply enjoyed the reverberations.

"A-a-a-a-a-a-hhhhh…th-th-ere w-we-e-e g-g-goooo…" he uttered with a smile as the trembling earth soothed his weary back muscles, massaged his stiffened bones, and eased his fragmented soul, not bothering to postulate why in the world the planet had suddenly gone into a hissy fit. Perhaps it was angry at the fact that this boy had passed its most difficult challenge, the 'Hole of Despair'!

Eventually, though, he found himself more than a tad curious.

"…W-w-w-w-wonder wher-r-re th-that's c-c-c-c-om-m-m-m-ing f-f-f-from?"

At that point, as one might guess, it only took a few seconds for the thoughts in Edd's mind to transition from "nature's finally rewarding me for my troubles" to "I am such a fool!"

_Krrrrrshhhhhh! Rrrrreeaaaaaarrrkkk!_

As soon as those startling, successive sounds echoed throughout the area, a single word began repeating itself in Eddward's mind until he came to a realization that shackled him at the very core of his being, sending electric currents of panic throughout his entire body.

_Beetle._

Still lying prone on the ground, Eddward gawked down the path, the world upside down as he saw what must have been a very-distant (at least geographically) cousin of the Tallon forest and Chozo ruins beetle-monster, trying to stifle a scream as it emerged from the crusted-over snow with gnashing mandibles and electric-green eyes that conveyed a message of revenge. Edd's fearful eyes could see that its blackened carapace, its jagged jawbones, and a crystallized cortex meant that this particular species had readily adapted to the Phendrana region, and as such, was not about to let the first meal in a long time get away.

…Nope. There was no way he was going to keep himself from freaking out any longer.

_"Karma!_" shrieked Eddward as he instantly jumped to his feet and instinctively activated his Space Jump Boots – full throttle, that is – facing the wrong direction. Realizing his error and knowing that the ravenous arthropod was making a lunge at his temperature-regulating coat, he awkwardly maneuvered his body so that he performed an extraordinarily bizarre variant of a backflip straight over the beetle, utterly confusing it while he landed squarely on his face, his hands at his sides as he plopped perfectly horizontally into the snow.

_"Mffffoooooooooo!_"

Though the world had not heard his defiant cry into the snow, Eddward knew he had no time to lose – trying to keep away from the oversized pest as if it had come from under Ed's own bed, he hastily rolled away into the dark cavern before him. The beetle had turned around and had begun _pitter-pattering_ toward him ravenously, but as its target tumbled further and further into the darkness, it eventually slowed down to a stop before retreating back into the snowy clearing, clearly losing interest in its prey.

Perhaps someday, another wayfarer would make the mistake of venturing into its solitary den. Or perhaps not. If beetles could cry…

Once he was sure he had been completely concealed by the shade of the grotto, Edd stood up and brushed the snow and dirt from his Varia Suit, which had gradually begun to lose its luster. It was all worth it, though, as long as he would never have to encounter…the _scourge _again!

_Oh no, Mother Nature won't fool me again with those insipid insects! I can see through her game…_ thought Edd triumphantly, waving his finger at nobody in particular as a devilish grin graced his face. _The more of those beetles I antagonize, the more seem to come after me, following me to the ends of the planet in an act of revenge! Well, not today, for now the tables have turned! Either way, I would rather get into a fistfight with a Space Pirate…er, no, maybe Rolf. _

…_No, Jimmy. Yes, we'll go with that…_

Once his eyes had again adjusted to a darker environment, Edd took up a hearty jog again down the path before him, though not before allowing himself a small snicker of triumph, having beaten the beetles at their own dastardly game…probably!

He exhaled slowly, though that smile never left his face. "Ha ha…I _really_ need to get some sleep." But there was to be no sleep for Eddward, for no matter how many clumsy encounters he was to endure with those trifling insects, he was a boy with a mission. And Ed would not wait for him forever, lost inside those black caverns…

* * *

The longer he stared at the huge slab of earth hovering above the crater, the more Eddy's mind began to meander. The elevator had long since reached the bottom of the shaft, but he had found the sight of that huge well in the ground, as well as the great aforementioned earth-chunk, so strangely captivating that he had grabbed onto the small wires coating the windowpanes and hung there like a monkey, his visor pressed against the glass. He had never really seen a true crater before – the one he had created in the pavement back home with his steel "safety-suit" didn't really count, as much as he hated to admit it. Once his mind had been wrapped around the insanity of its size, he began to speculate on what had caused it.

_Maybe some giant jackhammer from space, _he thought, mouth agape. _I dunno, I'd have to ask Sockhead. He'd probably know. He probably knows what's going on with everything by now…that is, if he even left that ship of his!_

He glanced downward; the elevator was about fifty feet below him. He shrugged and turned his gaze back to the window, a tapestry of raindrops.

_So, okay, the forest where Double Dee landed is somewhere near that crater. _His mind went back to the camera footage he saw on that terminal a few hours ago. It had been raining in that feed, too. _That means we shouldn't be very far apart. But where am I? I keep reading 'Phazon Mines' everywhere in this stupid place. So, wait a second…oh, duh, that means the Pirates are mining that Phazon stuff, whatever that is._

He prodded his lip and entered depths of thought he wasn't even aware existed within his mind.

_Phazon. Phazon. Where have I heard that word before? Well, there was that one huge tank on the first level that had that huge freaking Space Pirate in it; the computer-thingy next to it said 'Phazon' at one point. Wonder if it's that blue stuff? Yeah, that same blue stuff I saw just now…_

His eyes lit up, and absentmindedly he yelped out a righteous "A-_ha!_"

_I'm such a genius. Those dumb Space Pirates are mining that blue gooey stuff from the crater. See, I don't need no Sockhead to help me figure stuff out like this! I amaze me sometimes! Didn't take me long to get a good holda the situation, eh?_

The revelation didn't last long, though. His face became deathly placid.

_Oh, jeez, _he thought, biting his lower lip. _That means that this place must be crazy-important for the Pirates, if it's where they're getting all of their gooey Phazon stuff. Gah, that means it's almost as bad as the trailer park! And even worse, how am I gonna escape if I just keep going deeper into this trash-heap?_

The fear welling up inside him was so paralyzing that he completely let go from the chains and, absentmindedly, plummeted fifty feet down the elevator shaft. With no thought as to the reality of his situation, Eddy simply allowed himself to crash with a great metallic _clang! _on his back. He didn't even respond with a sound _oof!_ or even a _gargh!_ No, his mind was still on the horrific postulations that he had just mulled over, postulations that he wasn't even aware he could…postulate.

He blinked a few times.

_Wait a second, _he thought. _If I got this far into the Phazon Mines, which is definitely a super-important place that's almost as bad as the trailer park, without any help from my friends…then holy cow..._

And Eddy gasped with vigor, a crazed smile stretching elastically over his face.

_I am crazy-GOOD at this!_

He leapt to his feet, completely disregarding the jarring reality of the deadly fall he had just succumbed to, brushed himself off, and made straight for the hallway that connected to the elevator shaft. A small area, similar to the ones attached to previous shafts, and nothing remotely special. The door, hexagonal like all the others, invited him with a blue-ish glow; as always, he simply touched it and waited for it to instantaneously open up and bare its contents to him in splendor. Nothing, after all, could stand in the way of crazy-GOOD Eddy.

_Heck, throw all the Pirates you want at me, I can take 'em on! _he thought.

Eddy's mood swings, thus, were one of the great wonders of the world, and yet sadly, no-one had ever been around long enough to witness them.

The door, he noticed, was taking a ridiculously long time to open up – a full minute later and the thing was still depressurizing. Eddy decided that if he had a watch, he would stare at it, groan, and tap his foot impatiently. Instead he simply clawed at the portal desperately before crossing his arms and leaning up against the wall with a sigh.

"Come on, it's not like I have all day, you know!" he said with a scowl. He briefly entertained the notion that maybe slowing down would allow Ed and Edd to catch up with him, those unreliable slow-pokes, but hey, if they couldn't keep up with crazy-GOOD Eddy, that was their problem. "Jeez, it's almost like this place wants me to stay trapped in it _forever_. 'Oh, look at me, I'm a huge stinkin' _mine_ and I like to take _forever _when I open up my doors-'"

A little module on the wall, shaped like a calculator, grabbed his attention and slew his sentence before he could finish it. He probably only noticed it because it was rather shiny, but either way he found himself curious enough to take it in his hand and stare at it for a while. It looked vaguely like a non-working contraption that Rolf would keep around, or an obscure gadget found in Edd's room, which was odd, because it was the first time he saw something remotely familiar-looking in all the time he had been trapped in the mines. Everything else had just been so alien, large, translucent, warped, sinister…this was a welcome distraction, though Eddy himself wasn't sure why.

He took off his arm cannon and twisted one of the knobs located on its surface, which moved a needle on its screen to the left and to the right, accordingly.

"Huh. Maybe I can take this back to Peach Creek and sell it to Jonny for a couple bucks," he said through a malicious grin. "That kid would buy a piece of junk just like that-"

A crackling of static emanated from the contraption.

Eyes wide, Eddy fidgeted with the other dial.

More crackling. Then, garbled voices, alien-tongue, ambiance from space.

Eddy's jaw practically dropped to the floor.

He had found a radio.

* * *

Passing through the under-mountain network, a vast honeycomb of winding trails that stretched off in nearly every direction conceivable, was not going to be the easiest of ordeals - that much Edd had assured himself.

However, that did not prepare him for the extraordinary amount of legwork that he eventually had to endure – the path he had chosen was too long to go all the way on foot, yet at the same time was too unpredictable for him to risk using the boost boots. Thus, the increasingly-weary boy found himself at wit's end, driven only by his inability to predict how long Ed would be able to outmaneuver his Pirate opponent. He had always put a lot of stock in Ed's ability to deceive with his ridiculous ways, but maybe that was because he did not want to imagine his comrade in such dire straits.

_The back entrance to Glacier One must be nearby_… thought Eddward, his jog slowed down to a dreary staggering, keeping his limp hand near the cavern wall just in case he decided to keel over. _I guess I really did take the long way…Ed probably reached this area in no time…_

He went to remove his hat in order to wipe his head of sweat, but a bizarre sight ahead of him prevented him from doing so – in fact, it was just the change of scenery that prompted him to be filled with excitement again. With somewhat of a broken spring in his step, he fumbled out toward the end of the closed path he was following until he finally stumbled into a clearing – a refreshingly _huge_ one, that is.

In fact, the cavern he came out in was frighteningly gargantuan, certainly much bigger than he had ever imagined possible! So _this_ was what the caverns beneath the Phendrana looked like… The place seemed so different from the rest of the region, what with its goliath stalactites, its domed, icicled ceiling, its frost-blackened, glazed-over rocky walls, that Eddward assumed that it was of an entirely different ecology. He had never been one to venture into caves back in Peach Creek, often citing their abundance of insidious germs, but this…this was quite the sight to behold.

"And _this_ must be where Ed spent most of his time, at least before I arrived in Phendrana…" he noted, a wave of relief washing over him as he realized that his destination _was _in fact reachable. "Oh, it must have been nice to just stay put in one area while your friends do all the legwork…oh, Ed, you never cease to frustrate me."

He called out his friend's name, his high-pitched, shaky voice echoing off of the walls and shackling the icicles above him, only to be greeted by himself mere seconds later. Another call offered the same results – the solitude of the wintry environment, apathetically letting him know: 'yes, you are in a cave.'

'Yes, you are still alone.'

His armored shoulders slinked forward, allowing himself a defeated sigh for a moment before following his backup plan. "Well, if he's not here, then I had best search the premises for clues as to his whereabouts." He looked downward at his own vermillion boots, noticing that the snow-bound path that he was standing in was quite trodden, with stretched-out footprints of varying sizes, one set of which was unmistakable even to his weary eyes:

Ed-tracks. He knew the length of that clumsy stride anywhere.

He had just been here.

The other set…well, they looked alien enough, which led Edd to believe that Ed had not lost the Space Pirate assassin as easily as he would have hoped. The thing had probably been right behind him. But at least Edd had the tangible evidence he needed.

"Right, I've got a good lead – he was here recently," he muttered to himself, his adrenaline pumping as he looked around the expansive cavern, straining to see the other side due to how long the place was. The rather large lake far below his position seemed to have been coated in a thick sheet of ice until recently, judging by the freshly-scattered fragments floating around in its still-ripping waters. "And Ed must have fallen through there…or at least the Pirate. _Hopefully _the Pirate. Oh dear, I really _don't_ have a lot of time…"

He looked onward toward the shore of that very lake, where he spotted footprints in the snow, scrambling upward toward the far-off cliff wall directly opposite of where Edd stood. The Ed-prints were followed by Pirate-prints, and, judging by how beat-up and clawed-out the cliff wall looked, Ed must have gone up there. "Right, that's the path he took!" he noted excitedly, his path more or less clear at this point. "But they made such a mess of that wall – even with my Grapple Beam and the Space Jump Boots, I probably would not be able to go up that way. Drat, I'll need to find another route!"

Edd attempted to scratch his head in order to think of a way past the area, but found himself unable to…and frankly, he couldn't quite figure out why there was a sudden tugging sensation on his left wrist. "Strange…" he uttered as he looked downward at his hand and realized what had happened.

He had been 'Grapple Beamed'.

"What in the world?" he cried as he tugged at the energy rope that had suddenly fastened itself around his hand. Stricken with panic, he looked upward at its source, fully hoping that it was Ed playing a trivial prank on him. Unfortunately, the source was not nearly as welcome – in fact, t'was rather horrifying! Eddward strained to both come loose and scan the far-off creature that had snagged him so quickly, intent on figuring out what it was. But as it came closer and closer, he found that he did not exactly need his scan visor in order to discern what the heck was attacking him.

_…A Metroid!_

But there was something so incredibly odd about this one that Edd was more taken about by it than he was by normal variants of the species; in fact, at first he had not recognized it for what it was. In place of a perfectly orbed, translucent head was a lopsided, floppy husk riddled with veiny nerve clusters, its sickly-orange tint almost completely clouding the crimson nuclei in its center. It looked ill…unnatural, as if it were exposed to some outside natural influence. Whatever it was, Edd wanted it _off_.

"Agh, let go of me!" he yelled as he tried to aim his arm cannon at the hovering apparition, intent on striking it down with a flurry of missiles, but not even their heat-seeking capabilities could follow this unnaturally agile apparition – it seemed this variant of Metroid was rather wise to the violent ways of interstellar weaponry. _It's most likely seasoned after being aggravated by Space Pirate researchers! _reasoned Edd as he regarded the creature's ghastly shape.

A Super Missile was Edd's next tactic, an attack that successfully struck the monster square in its half-inflated balloon of a cranium, but its overly-gelatinous form seemed to absorb most of the impact. Angered, the Metroid retracted its siphon-beam and simply bull-rushed Eddward, probably intent on knocking the Earthling off of the cliff edge and into the lake below!

"Oh no, you don't!" cried a foreseeing Edd as he gave the beast a vicious taste of his deal-breaking Wavebuster, the overpowering electrical current sentiently constricting the Metroid; within mere seconds the beast's head was ruptured, and its lifeless form fluttered down onto the lake-shore far below, accompanied only by its faint yet ear-piercing screeches of agony.

Though the scourge was rightly defeated, Edd still shuddered at the notion of a monster that could readily withstand a strike from his overpowering Super Missiles. His panicked breath heavy, he took a brief moment to scan the deflated corpse from afar:

_Morphology: Hunter Metroid._

_Adolescent Metroid. Energy-siphon tentacle increases its threat level._

_ As Metroids develop, they become more efficient predators. An energy-draining tentacle allows them to attack at a distance. Quick to anger, a Hunter Metroid will charge troublesome pretty and attempt to ram them into submission. Like its lesser cousin, it still retains a vulnerability to cold environments._

_That explains why it was stored here in the frigid regions_, he thought as he regarded the Hunter Metroid's lifeless body with disgust. _Evolving Metroids…I can only assume the Pirates are responsible for this, as they have been for nearly every nightmarish discovery I've made…_

Unfortunately he had no time to dwell on this disturbing discovery; with the otherworldly threat cast aside and defeated, Edd returned to the task of trailing the most repulsive kid from Peach Creek through the icy caverns of the southern reaches. Unfortunately, this time, he could not readily follow his friend's cartoonish stench like he could have back in the cul-de-sac. Instead of using his nose, he used his eyes to scan the entire expanse of the subterranean area until he finally spied a small tunnel across from him, beneath the path that Ed took – he slowly hovered down to the ground level and boosted straight into its depths, not wasting another moment.

Glancing at his map, Eddward quickly put two and two together in order to make sure he was not following a tangential path that would lead him to the wrong area. "If I can't follow the path that Ed took, then I'll need to make sure that my alternate route leads me to the same relative area," he noted, convincing himself that there was no time to lose. "I can't afford to miscalculate my direction. I'd need to get outside in order to get my bearings!"

And he was granted his request, for about fifty yards down the cavernous path lied a clearing most profound, and Edd was temporarily blinded by the light of the Phendrana sky when he jogged out into it. Unshielding his eyes, he quickly took in the scene – in a similar scenario as before, he found himself on the edge of a cliff overlooking yet another trench, this time _within _the mountain range – he had made great progress, it seemed, about a mile or so! The trench below…well, he could hardly see the bottom of it, though his Thermal Visor indeed indicated that a watery fate would await a clumsy misstep, as before.

"Right, so at least I'm still going south," he affirmed, wiping his brow as he scanned the skyline for his smoky waypoint.

"…Wait a minute…" he uttered, a sudden wave of fear washing over him. "The smoke signal…where did it go?"

Indeed, the southern sky was no longer tainted by the black signal that he had been chasing down. Checking his map, he could see that the tunnel he had passed through extended southward like he predicted. He looked back at his databanks and reaffirmed the geographical position of the cave he had just been in. "Oh, drat!" he shouted aloud as he nearly slapped himself on the forehead…and, after a brief moment of consideration, he _did_. "The path Ed took extended to the _east_, not the _south_…" He looked upward toward the eastern skyline, and indeed, the black smoke arced upward into infinity in that direction. Funnily enough, he had gone in the wrong direction – however, that he had so easily passed it mean that his destination was closer than he expected

_ Aha! _he thought, nearly jumping in place as his fear was replaced with a welcome bout of excitement. _It appears I'm so close that I accidentally passed it by going through that last tunnel. Right, I must search the crevice here for a tunnel leading to the crash site, so I can-_

_ Ka-crasshhhhh!_

A blast of fire about four feet away from his position sent Edd's train of thought far off-course, an occurrence that was becoming all-too-common for him at this point. Not having much leeway to get away in case of a second strike, Edd had no choice but to look upward into the Phendrana sky, where his absolute worst fears were confirmed…

_Pirates! Flying Pirates!_ thought Edd, wanting to curse and scream at his terrible luck as he swiftly charged up a shimmering Power shot, regarding the two jet-pack-wearing Space Pirates swiftly hovering down toward his position and launching a flurry of missiles toward the cliff-edge upon which he stood. _They must be the reinforcements that I scared off in the courtyard atop Glacier One! Oh, drat it all! Why now of all times?_

If there was one thing that Eddward knew, it was that he was not about to let a few Space Pirate scoundrels keep him from finding his monobrowed friend amongst these accursed mountains.

Thus, he had to act fast: without wasting any time, he let fly one Super Missile, which reliably homed in and utterly annihilated the Pirate on the right. The other Pirate, however, swerved to the left in the nick of time and let loose on Edd's position with a wild flurry of crimson plasma blasts, visibly infuriated due to the death of its compatriot.

Eager to stop the Pirate's rage before it stopped _him_, Edd readied another Power shot – as he did so, he felt significant pangs of intense heat against his left arm and chest, obviously struck by a few of the Pirate's blasts. The impact staggered him a bit, but thankfully his Varia Suit was durable enough to absorb most of the impact. In retaliation, he fired one last Super Missile into the storm of reddened rain, and this time it homed in on its elusive mark, enveloping his foe in a radiant explosion.

"Phew!" exhaled Edd, looking upward at the sky in relief as he again narrowly averted disaster thanks to his light-speed thinking. _Well, that definitely could have been worse – hopefully there won't be any more reinforcements-_

_Ka-crassshhh!_

An explosion of incredible magnitude rocked the cliff upon which he stood, causing the very rock itself to shift beneath him – it appeared the Pirate's last-ditch missile had met its mark after all! Frantically, Edd grasped at the rock surrounding him as the cliff began to crumble down into the trench, and a last-ditch attempt to leap back into the cave proved unsuccessful. That said, he _was_ able to grab onto what remained of the cliff – a single jutting stone, no larger than his fist – with his left hand.

"Drat, drat, _drat_!" he cried through a strained voice as he struggled to pull his own weight back into the cave, or anywhere besides the gaping trench below him, doing everything in his power to make sure he _did not fall_. His grip was awkward enough as it was, which meant that a flick-of-the-wrist to activate his Grapple Beam would not have been possible. What was more, there appeared to be no blatantly metallic material within the miniscule ledge which he hung from, thus rendering his newfound Spider Magnetism useless. All he had was his left hand and an arm completely immersed in a clumsily large arm cannon. "Please…not now…after I've come so far…!"

Mother Nature, however, would remain deaf to his pleas for assistance: as the rock that his life hung onto detached itself from the wall of the trench, Eddward could only scream defiantly at the Phendrana sky as he fell into the maw of the canyon, away from the light of the sun and far away from the smoke signal to which he had been journeying.

And the unknown, as always, welcomed him graciously into its fold.

* * *

His green jacket had long since been discarded in favor of increased mobility – a desperate use of his tongue as a makeshift whip to the Pirate's face had saved him from gunpoint, but not for long – the Pirate was so incredibly fast that he could not get away before being slugged in the face or kicked in the stomach, and even Ed could not endure that much physical pain for long. Certain by now that he would find a tooth laying around somewhere, Ed had no time to scramble for his arm cannon, and instead fought with what he had. With a battle-scream the oaf lashed out with a clawed hand at his assailant's face; in that same instant a long-fingered hand wrapped around his wrist, and the Pirate pulled him close, drove its fist into his eye, hurled him to the ground…

…From the floor he saw the Pirate's boot descending like a sledgehammer toward his face. Rolled out of the way, just in time…grapple-beam to its ankle…blade-severed. Not working. Nothing working at all. All the old tricks, rendered useless.

"Get away from me…_monst-arrrgh!_" Reactively he launched his grapple-beam toward its ankles again; again the Pirate reacted with a downward swing, intending to parry his lasso. But with a quick snap of the wrist Ed managed to coil his blue holy rope around the Pirate's neck! And Ed's smile, one tooth fewer, glimmered with victory. With the jarring force of a mule he pulled back on the cord, drawing his foe forward with a staggering lurch.

A chance!

The boy sprinted toward his adversary, and did the only thing he could do: with a battle-cry he _smashed _his forehead into the Pirate's skull, plowing through his opponent like a mad, stampeding rhinoceros; his foe crashed to the ground with a deep, garbled scream, debilitated, arms limp by its sides.

Somewhere, Russell seemed to sing out.

"I'm coming, Russell! _Ed is coming for you!_" And with all speed, thinking his grapple beam was still constricted 'round the Pirate's throat, Ed hobbled over to his weapon, glimmering tantalizingly on the ice. Reached down, feeling it within his fingers.

Until the boot seared into his side, sending him careening into the far wall.

Through blurred vision and a dull red pain in his stomach, Ed looked up from the floor at his black, demonic enemy, walking casually toward him, blade-brandished, unaffected, invulnerable, the king of the Pirates, a god, unbeatable, untouchable, and completely _unreal_. The words "I surrender!" danced on Ed's tongue, but this boy would have none of it. He would sooner die a Space Outlaw than live as a shamed traitor to his order. That was not the kind of person he was raised to be, not the kind of warrior that these rapturous times had called for. With a defiant snarl of his own, saliva spilling out onto the ice, good old Ed swore to himself to fight on like the hero his friends had made him out to be, the hero he had been in his wildest dreams, the hero whose face, even then, was reflected in the ice upon which he lay.

If only he could stand.


	14. Glacial Collapse

_**Chapter Fourteen**_

_**Glacial Collapse**_

It was a widely-held belief that caves were among the most mysterious places on Earth, rivaled only by the untold depths of the great oceans: for the most part unexplored, uninhabited by man, and home to creatures exotic and oftentimes _alien _in nature. To the most acrobatic imaginations, these sanctums were the most nightmarish and awe-inspiring pockets of the planet, from which terrors and specters came forth in deepest night, or where fascinating insects and geological mysteries dwelled, or where one could find the best spots from which to scare off the pesky neighborhood kids.

Edd was the kind of boy who leaned toward that second viewpoint, but only in terms of Earthen caves. Tallon IV, on the other hand, well, that was another matter altogether.

Case in point: _this_ certainly was no ordinary cavern, and as such begged questions such as "where did the ceiling go?", "should it really be _snowing _in a cave?", and "where are those sounds of conflict, anger, and instinct coming from? For aren't these Phendranan caves supposed to be all but lifeless?"

Indeed, what young Eddward had begun to realize, half-unconscious on the bank of a great underground river - which ran beneath the entire Phendranan mountain range - was that this one area was no ordinary cave, and had ceased to be one entirely at the moment of his arrival.

His visor hanging loosely on the tip of his nose, Edd crawled up from the riverbank and immediately collapsed into the snow, mind liquid, dancing on that thin threshold between sleep and painful lucidity. His Varia Suit dripping wet and lead-heavy on his back, he simply allowed his senses to reboot.

…_Where in the world am I? _he thought, vision fading in and out in varying degrees of blurriness. With great effort he gazed back at the river that had tossed him into this vast cavern, vaguely remembering its frigid touch. _Well, I don't remember seeing that. Or…wait a second. Didn't I fall into a trench just now? Yes, I remember the Space Pirates… Ah, so the water below must have carried me into the underground networks. That's fortunate, I suppose._

His head throbbed with the first warning signs of a headache. _How long have I been unconscious?_ he thought.

With sore joints screaming out, he rose to his feet, his Varia Suit weighing twice what it had before – Edd found he couldn't even stand up straight with its weight on his back, and each step he took through the snow was an ordeal of its own. It still regulated his body temperature well enough, but what good was that when it rendered him as agile as a turtle?

"A true necessary evil," he said with a cynical smirk, slowly making his way clockwise along the cavern wall, his senses and strength gradually restoring themselves as he went. A second glance around the area gave him the impression that he was in the same cavern he had been in before his Space Pirate encounter upon the cliffs, which at first caused his heart to sink, but he soon began to see some key differences. The open ceiling, of course, was one; displaying a crimson tapestry of the evening Tallon sky, it rendered the cavern a natural Pantheon dome. The snow made for a fine decorative carpeting, but Edd noticed something quite unusual about it.

"It's all trudged up," he muttered, eyes tracking a flurry of footprints in the snow of varying lengths and depths, "like someone had been here before I arrived. _Definitely _Ed, but there's no guarantee he'd be nearby." That was, unfortunately, true, for the tracks were mostly covered up with newfallen snow. "These were made _hours _ago, I think."

A small body of water, an in-cave lake, rested further on, littered with huge, floating chunks of shattered ice and flotsam.

"Yes. Definitely Ed," he chuckled, the image of that lovable oaf gracefully diving into a sheet of ice dancing around in his mind.

And then he paused for a moment.

_Smoke._

_Wait a second._

Eddward's gaze shot back up to the sky. He would never know how he had missed it at first, but there it was again, that huge pillar of billowing black smoke, snaking high into the clouds. Haunting as usual, to be sure. However…

"That's coming out of _this _cavern."

When his eyes tracked to the north end of the cave, he finally saw it. In all of its white, battered glory, the escape pod slept in a deep pocket in the rock wall, its surface cracked and sparks flying out of its opened maw.

"…Ah-ha! Yes! I've _found _it!" In mere moments Edd found himself approaching the blasted contraption, that horrifyingly small device he had coaxed his friend into, and regarded it as if it were some sort of angelic artifact, albeit from a safe distance. Even he wasn't certain if the thing would just randomly detonate, spewing trails of smoke as it was. "Ed, you mystery of a man, you just _had _to land in the most extreme and treacherously hard-to-reach cave in all of Tallon IV, didn't you?"

This, of course, raised but one question: "Now, where did you run off to?"

Based on the pod's position in the cave wall, Edd assumed that it could _not _have entered this cave from the opening in the ceiling above, because it if had done so, it would have hit the cave floor or the lake, not the wall; in fact, it looked like it had been thrown, like a giant baseball, from one end of the cave to another. Looking in the opposite direction, toward the far end of the cavern, Edd could see a huge gaping hole high up in the rock wall, roughly the size of the pod itself. "Ah-ha! Precisely! If my calculations are correct, and based on the trajectory, the pod had to have been thrown from _that _height straight into this wall here. That must have been Ed's way to escape from his _true _landing site…_that _cave." He pointed to that great hole in the wall, as if he were directing the gaze of another person.

He would have tried to climb the far wall, or at least Space-Jumped it, and explore the cave beyond that opening, but alas, it had been long since packed with a thick mass of snow and ice. So instead he turned to the myriad of footprints left all around him, searching for more recently-made tracks.

It was about a minute until he found one particular trail of all-too-familiar Ed-prints, not yet snow-filled, and very fresh compared to the rest. Excitedly, his eyes followed them across the cave floor, up to a wall…up the wall. _Way _up the wall.

"How did he…_climb_ that?" said Edd in disbelief, following Ed's path to nearly the _top _of the far-off cavern wall, an impossibly dizzying height. "Well, _that's _out of the question, considering how heavy my armor suit is. An alternate route is needed here…if I were so lucky."

Luckily enough, a second path _did_ exist for Eddward, a side-passage along that same wall that seemed to lead toward the same destination. Upon closer inspection, of course, the tunnel, which had appeared to be quite easygoing at first, was filled to the nozzle with _water_.

Immediately he felt resigned to his fate. "Am I really going to have to do this?" he asked himself aloud. Sure, Edd knew he could swim – a rare physical ability that he wasn't _completely_ inept at – but encumbered with all of that equipment? "This seems a bit much, given the circumstances."

But Eddward found himself wading into its blackened depths all the same, Ed ever-present in his mind. Those sounds of conflict, muted yells echoing from cavernous depths…

"Well," he muttered with a heavy sigh, "we all know what desperate times call for: lungs of steel!"

He inhaled deeply, swallowed a snowflake, and entered a violent coughing fit.

Then, after regaining his composure, he tried again, and then plunged into the dark enclosed depths. Frigid waves lashing against his face shocked him at first, but he remained steadfast in his breath-holding. His Thermal Visor automatically flicked itself on and painted the black tunnel in deep navy blues, with occasional blotches of red – swarms of bright orange heat, schools of fish, dispersed with every heavy breaststroke and fluttered into the coattails of his Varia Suit before skidding off into his wake. His mind, empty of thoughts, remained fixed on a nondescript point in the distance, and he pushed through glimmering red trails of seaweed and along dark blue walls, his vision turning red with the increasingly desperate need to breathe.

Progress was slow – Eddward felt as if he were entrapped in an infinite space, flailing and grasping, but never moving forward. Stranded, without a tether 'round his waist.

Panic worked its magic.

He frantically pushed off of a particularly jutting stone with his feet and sailed through the narrow tunnel, which opened up into a vast, submerged cavern similar in scope to the previous one. Not risking a quick look-back, Edd dared to believe that he was now located somewhere below the cavern he suspected Ed had run off to – however, a look upward revealed only a low ceiling of impenetrable bedrock.

Still, he swam onward, lungs flaring in pain. His teeth clenched nearly to the point of shattering.

Eddward strained through nebulae of glimmering fish-schools, clearing what seemed like twenty feet in a span of time he couldn't even recount. But still under that blasted bedrock, no matter how far he swam!

Twenty more…not even a speck of light. No pocket of air in the world above, and no shore to be seen in the darkness before him.

_Swim…faster…can't…breathe…! _

Lungs ablaze, another ten feet; only more bedrock. Mother Nature cackled like a vile, aging witch.

From then on his mind receded back into his being and his instincts took control. The only intelligent thing he could manage now was to convince his body not to inhale, but even that was a battle he had begun to lose. He was too weighted down…too much of a burden…

_I must get rid of the Varia Suit!_

He would perish otherwise.

Swimming clumsily onward, he wrestled at his coat in an attempt to peel it off, working through cumbersome sleeves and only one available hand, the other trapped inside his insatiable arm cannon (annoying construct!). He flailed frantically, grunting beneath stilled breath, as if he were constricted by an underwater creature and attempting to free himself in a struggle for life. It may well have been, for his own life seemed to be receding fast. Everything just going red at an alarming rate...

_Thump!_

A muted reverberation echoed directly above his head, and Edd reflexively whipped his gaze in that direction. Where there had been bedrock before, there was now a thick sheet of pack ice, a scratched, clouded surface through which he could barely see – he hadn't noticed it amidst all of his flailing. The Thermal Visor overloaded and rendered the sheet as a stark blue plane – he deactivated it immediately.

He could faintly make out a reddened shimmer…a gleam of an azure blade…a red-and-white shirt…

"_There he is!"_ he would have shouted had he not been submerged.

With no time to lose, and his mind going blank due to a throttling lack of oxygen, Edd frantically swam through the gargantuan cavern with the intent on reaching the indiscernible end, hoping against all hope that there would be an opening to the upper level. However, as he went, the path became even less clear, and even murkier and harder to navigate than before. Silently, he begged for a guidelight to help him in his final push – his body neared the edge of its limits, his lungs ablaze with the desire to inhale.

And, for an instant, as if it were an answer to his prayers, a beacon flashed in the depths.

He lost it for a second, but in a few moments' time he saw it again, but he couldn't make out exactly what it was. Swimming over to the alcove in which the shimmer-light rested, Edd deactivated his Thermal Visor again and tried to make out exactly what he was looking at. A light at the end of a tunnel? A delusion brought on by the ever-nearing prospect of death? Though he did not recognize it at first glance, he vaguely recalled something about it…it was an artifact, he realized, and not quite an ordinary one. In fact, it appeared to be emblazoned with a figure roughly representing a 'Z'…

He blinked in disbelief.

_By. Jove._

His fingers wrapped themselves 'round the artifact, as if it were a sphere which granted everlasting life to the doomed.

And it vanished in an instant.

However, Edd did not panic, for he knew the nature of these things – in fact, he had put such trust in the Chozo and their bizarre artifacts that all he could do was hope that whatever this would turn out to be, whatever blessing would be bestowed upon his meager form, it would be the godsend he needed. A shimmering light then overtook his entire Varia Suit, blinded him, took his mind off of the seething pain in his chest – his arms extended themselves outward involuntarily as if there were attached to puppet-strings. The light bestowed great amounts of heat into his entire suit, every small compartment, dispersing energy throughout its length, reaching up even to his visor; in pain, Edd closed his eyes tightly, waited for the light to recede. And eventually it did.

But he could not take it anymore, and breathed out in desperation.

And then he inhaled.

Cool, circulated air washed into his system like waves crashing onto a parched shore.

After some time, he muttered: "Wait, what's this? That wasn't…air, was it…?" Blinking rapidly he reached toward his face, but before he could do so his fingers struck a smooth surface just a few inches from his nose – a helmet of some kind? He felt all the way around his head; it certainly _felt _like a helmet, probably glass, and gelled 'round his skull, only inches from the surface of his skin. With every subsequent breath he took, a latch opened up behind his neck, and after every exhale, it closed off.

"Wait a second, is that a _ventilation system_?" He blinked a few times in disbelief. "And…hold on, now, what in the world… Everything is _visible_. Plainly visible! _What _is going on here?" No need for a Thermal Visor, suddenly – the underwater depths had become as crystal clear as the world above had been. Murkiness erased. Looking down at himself he beheld his Varia Suit, more or less unchanged, save for color scheme; where there had once been yellow armor, there was only deep red and subdued orange – his temperature-regulating coat had been dyed a stark violet. What was more, his visor's color had been transfigured, too, into a shade of light azure.

His scan visor, perhaps sensing his intentions, provided him with a simple readout in stark letters:

"'Varia Suit has been upgraded into the Gravity Suit, a more versatile version based on physical limitations of user when submerged,'" recited Edd slowly, voice ringing out clearly in the deep. "'Upgrades include enhanced visor clarity, oxygen regulation system, underwater vocal communications device, increased armor durability and, um…_uninhibited underwater movement._"

He thought about that one for a moment.

And then, the solution came to him, like an epiphany from on high.

It was crazy. Absolutely insane. Something Ed would think of, really.

But in desperate times…

With the speed of a freaking barracuda, Eddward barreled through the underwater cavern, toward that one relatively small ceiling of ice he had seen before. Hovering up toward it, he _clanged _his arm cannon against its surface; it had a nice timbre to it, although it did not seem so solid as to prevent a full-on collision. It would definitely break if struck with just enough force. "Alright, then, this _might _just work after all. If I can just…" He allowed himself to float down to the bottom of the cavern, and returned his gaze on the ice-sheet fifteen feet above. "…position myself properly and tweak the Space Jump Boots a tad…"

His Space Jump Boots automatically sensed his intention to lift off the ground, but as he did _not_ jump right away, they remained charging, charging, charging, becoming red-hot around his bare feet locked inside…and Eddward, with a nervous gulp, bent his knees and lifted his arm cannon over his head like a shield. He hoped it would be enough, for there was no clear exit to be had anyhow.

"…Then I may be able to gain the momentum I need…"

Nearly forgetting to do so, he began to charge up a debilitating Wave Beam shot, feeling its electric might waver at the tip of his weapon, like a violet sun shimmering violently above his head. Even now he heard the sounds of fury and conflict above him, above the ice, above that blasted barrier…

This was it.

"Alright, here we go, Eddward!" he muttered to himself through clenched teeth as the watery depths rippled around him, squinting his eyes in preparation for the headache of a lifetime. "In three…two…_one_…!"

* * *

His eyesight had dimmed with that last punch to his eye, though Ed, stalwart as he was, managed to rise to his knees all the same. Whatever humor he had left in his system had all but waned in the face of a reality that he was slowly being forced to swallow: his opponent was simply immune to the great forces of _dumb luck_.

"You…will not defeat…me, soul-sucker!" he spluttered incoherently, his lower lip dyed a deep red with blood as he fidgeted his hands about in a failed attempt to intimidate. "F…for I am…Ed, the hun-"

The Pirate's speed was such that Ed could no longer finish his sentences without being physically interrupted, and this time was no different – his adversary appeared before him, as if through a mist, and cleaved downward at his face with his arm-blade. Too weakened to move out of the way, Ed instead reacted by clasping the blade itself between his two hands at the right moment, holding it just inches over his sweat-gleamed forehead. "Nope…nope…not today, solar scum!" he grunted, pushing the blade back…but the Pirate pushed the blade downward in return, descending slowly toward Ed's flesh…

Ed's strength quickly depleted after a few seconds of this, and in mere moments he felt the flaming heat of the blade on his nose. The Pirate's eyes held that same fire, not victorious yet, but serious, wide, professional…intent on administering the kill.

And Ed's hands burned as if they were alight; he couldn't hold on to the blade any longer! No matter how hard he bit onto his own lip, no matter how hard he roared through clenched teeth, his hands did not cool, and the Pirate simply did not stop.

The word "defeat" flashed through his cavernous head.

And Ed screamed his last as the Pirate drew back and lunged at his exposed throat with a swift horizontal slice!

_Kkkkrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrsshhhh!_

In the space between the moment the Pirate lunged out and the moment its blade came within inches of Ed's neck, the ice-floor of the cave exploded in a geyser of crystalline shards. A torrent of water erupted upward from the depths beneath, freezing both the boy and his adversary in states of absolute shock as the deafening noise prattled throughout the cavern.

And from the geyser, hidden in the watery mists, something emerged.

A screaming, purple orb of pure electrical energy blasted forth from the eruption, struck the Pirate square in the chest, and exploded, sending his adversary hurling back over ten feet into the wall with a monstrous roar of pain. Ed himself dropped to his knees in stark confusion, flabbergasted, more than usual, at the sudden turn of events, wondering if he was watching his life flash before his eyes…wondering if what he was seeing was what would have happened if a miracle had occurred _before _he died.

But the unexpected form that crashed down onto the ice in a glorious violet sheen did more than enough to make Ed a believer. And the first words from his mouth:

"_Double Dee! _It is _you!_"

But Edd's face, relievingly familiar as it was, was not happy, but instead fear-stricken. His friend shouted out, "No time, Ed! Where is your arm cannon?"

Ed, blinking rapidly, scanned the room for that familiar platinum shimmer of Russell on the ice – in seconds he saw it at the far north end of the chamber. "Over there, Double Dee! It's Russell!"

"_Quickly, Ed, go! Retrieve it now!"_

The adrenaline newly coursing through Ed's veins immediately sent him off toward the direction of his weapon, and he sprinted through the bruises and pain that the Pirate had inflicted upon him, cringing all the while, and when he came within range, he dove for that blessed cylinder, grabbed it, and slid it onto his right forearm. He shouted out "Russell has been retrieved, Double Dee! Uh, now what do I do?"

When Edd did not respond, Ed looked back and saw his friend aiming his own weapon at the prone Pirate across the room – a vermillion orb, a Power shot, Ed knew, had formed on the tip of his weapon, but then, in a single short instant, it attained the shape of a star about to go nova. Then, a split-second later, it exploded forth from the arm cannon and meteored across the chamber, like some incredible super-Missile, straight toward the Pirate!

But again this Pirate proved his insane agility! The adversary quickly skittered to its feet, leaped rightout of the super-Missile's trajectory, and lunged straight at the bewildered Edd. With one quick motion, in mid-air, the Pirate spun around in a cyclonic haze and slammed its shin into Edd's side in a horrific roundhouse kick.

And Edd sailed into the nearby wall in a total blur.

"Ah, _Double Dee!_" Ed screamed, barreling with all speed toward that demonic Pirate scum. "_Stay away from my friend, karate-monster!_"

Keeping his eyes on Edd, the Pirate tracked its own arm-mounted cannon in Ed's general direction – immediately a spark of red light exploded from its end. Instinctively, Ed fell out of the way of the two Pirate-missiles, which erupted in the icy wall behind him. When he turned back toward the Pirate, he could see that Edd was in a complete daze, his visor separated from his head, and slouched up against the wall.

"Ed, listen!" shouted Edd in a panic from the distance, his arm cannon again brimming violet at its edge. "I need you to listen _very _carefully, otherwise this will end very badly for both of us!"

Ed nodded, though it was obvious Edd hadn't noticed.

"Charge up your Power beam," he shouted, staggering to his feet and brandishing his arm cannon at the looming Pirate. "But do _not _fire it yet! Do you understand? Do _not _fire it just yet!" In the meantime, he fired his own electrical shot at the Pirate and, somehow, began darting at an incredible speed all about the chamber; the Pirate, having dodged the blast, followed suit, pursuing him with its vorpal blade.

And Ed could only watch in amazement.

How in the _world _was Edd moving that quickly? It was as if everything in the world except for Ed had entered a state of fast-forward! It must have been those boots of his, glowing a brilliant blue with every rapid, weaving movement Edd made.

Legs trembling, Ed began charging up his Power beam to its maximum capacity, feeling the sun-power at the end of the barrel.

"Now what, Double Dee?"

The Pirate, he saw, had effectively boxed his friend in a corner again, and though Edd was again charging another shot, the Pirate was closing in far too fast for him to release it in time. "Okay, Ed, next you're going to-"

And the adversary slashed at Edd's face with its sword, in a lightning-flash.

But Edd, with an insanely improbable reflex, _parried _the strike with his own weapon! When did Edd become so quick, so agile? So tactical? And then, almost instantly afterward, while the Pirate was well-stunned by the maneuver, Edd unleashed a huge coil of electricity into the Pirate's stomach – that entire end of the room began to flare in a violet nova as the Pirate's roar deafened all.

"_Ready and aim your Power Beam, Ed!"_

Ed was obedient.

"What do I do now, Double Dee?" he cried, the urge to run forth and help his companion eating away at every fiber of his being.

"_Fire a missile!"_

"You mean the Power beam-thing, Double Dee?"

"No, Ed, the _missile! The miss-allll!_"

"Oh, whoops! Got it!"

And Ed fired the missile.

Simply put, he had never expected Russell to be capable of such catastrophe.

A vermillion explosion of unprecedented size exploded from the tip of his arm cannon and seared forth toward the Pirate with sparrow-speed. At that exact moment, Edd immediately ceased whatever incredible power he was unleashing into the Pirate and used his Space Jump Boots to dive far away, twenty feet at the _least_, and just in time to avoid the blinding blast that quickly enveloped the Pirate assassin.

The recoil from the blast sent Ed careening back into the wall, and Edd only missed the shockwave by a few feet, holding onto his hat for dear life.

All, for that moment, went white as winter.

When the light receded, Ed was slouched up against the wall, Russell smoking black steam by his side. Edd was on his face fifteen feet away, hand clutching onto his hat tightly. The Pirate was mirroring Ed's slumped position on the opposite wall, hands by its sides, head listed slightly. Its chest-plate had been utterly demolished, shattered into small crimson shards by its legs – a wellspring of green blood splurted forth from its chest and onto the floor all around it.

The adversary grunted, muttered something in alien tongue, too quiet for Ed to comprehend or even hear.

And Ed would have asked him to repeat it, had the Space Pirate not finally perished.

The azure blade went black.

* * *

He heard the Space Pirate's final utterances, but even then Edd did not dare to move. It wasn't that he had been injured by that kick to his ribs, even though he was plainly certain that the blow would have killed him outright were it not for the extra plating his upgraded suit had bestowed upon his torso. Rather, he found himself truly frightened, in a way that he hadn't experienced before. Truly, most of the hazards he'd run into – the Flaahgra, the Magmoors, the Sheegoths, and especially the Metroids – had scared him to some extent, but in some way or another he had overcome those obstacles, and the fear that went along with them. This Space Pirate, however, instilled within him a lingering fear, a deep one, as if it were a living parasite in his system.

_Well, it appears my legs are still attached_, he thought, wiggling his toes. _Fortunate that I jumped out of the range of the explosion in time, I'll say. Either way, from now on, I may have to take everything a bit slower…that was a very, very close one._

All the same he got up to his feet, the Pirate's roundhouse kick miraculously reduced to a mere shallow pain on his left side. When he affirmed that his body was still in one piece, he felt his skull to make sure his head hadn't split open when he had crashed through the ice. Actually, he realized that his underwater "helmet" had vanished. Perhaps it was a system that only worked in the right situations, like his visor?

"Drats, now where did that tenacious fiend knock my visor?" he thought, scratching his chin as he looked about. "I swear, if I end up losing that contraption for good I-"

His train of thought was derailed entirely the instant he was consumed by a monstrous bear-hug from behind.

"_Double Dee!_ My friend! My _pal! _Oh how I have missed you so!"

"Ed! Ed, stop it, I can't…I can't _breathe!_"

"Can't breathe?" gasped Ed with genuine concern. "Double Dee can't breathe, Russell! I must perform First Aid on Double Dee before he goes all blue and his head explodes!"

Edd's heart sank. "No, _no first aid, Ed! Stop!_" And that, surprisingly, was enough to cause Ed to drop him as if he were alight. He then turned around and pointed straight at his friend's face, saying "Ed, you should know that I have a great headache after crashing through that solid floor of _ice_, and I needn't remind you that…oh, who am I kidding? Ed…I can't believe it, you're _alive! _Not that I doubted you or _anything,_ but…this is astounding! Amazing, even!"

"A-yup!" affirmed Ed with the goofiest of smiles – Edd noticed a missing molar near the edge of his lower row, and winced. "All in a day's work for a fearless Space Outlaw, Double Dee."

And to be fair, Ed _looked _as if he had gone through a "day's work"; the worst day of his life, that is. Where had his green jacket gone? "Ed, you look absolutely terrible…"

"Why _thank _you!"

"No, really, Ed, you're bleeding!…do your teeth hurt?…where did you get that black eye?...can you still see straight?...how is your visor still in one piece?…" To these questions Ed had no real answer, for he simply settled for staring blankly into space, pondering his exploits and how best to describe them in classic science-fiction lingo. "Oh, what's the use? As long as you're alive, Ed, that's all that counts at the moment."

"_And _hungry," added Ed poignantly.

Edd had no solution for that, but he had to admit that it _was_ getting to be around supper-time. Through the hole in the ceiling he could see that the sky was entering the final shades of dusk, that deep crimson that existed just before the cinematic setting of the sun. "So, this is where you landed, correct? In the escape pod, I mean."

Ed looked back up at the hole in the ceiling, as well. "Yep, sailed right down from outer space and _BOOM! _This is where my adventure began, right here, Double Dee. Uh-huh, took some work getting out, but I used my survival skills to clear a path into the dark dungeons of the Winter Planet."

"Yes, I noticed your, um, escape pod in the wall over there," said Edd, pointing back in the direction of the Pantheonic cave nervously. "I admit, that was very clever, Ed."

"_Or _dumb!" corrected the oaf.

It was good to be corrected again, thought Edd. "Well, while you've been romping about here in Phendrana, Ed, I've been through some riveting adventures of my own, and let me tell you, it wasn't exactly a picnic!"

"Yeah, 'cause you can't have a picnic without potato salad, Double Dee."

"True, Ed, true."

Having something resembling a normal conversation with his beat-up friend made Edd feel terribly guilty for everything that had transpired. He would have scolded Ed for his recklessness, for the trouble he had gotten himself into in Glacier One, but then again it had been Edd's idea to split up after the _Orpheon _incident in the first place. He remembered that sad look that Ed had worn before he launched off in the escape pod…

_What I've gone through today, to get to this point, _thought Edd with a wistful smile, _is punishment enough for that silly idea._

"Russell and I have been having adventures of our own, Double Dee, we weren't bored at all!" said Ed, hoisting up his arm cannon as if it were some sort of pet – he began petting it in a rather disturbing fashion.

"Um…Russell, Ed?" said Edd, eyebrow cocked.

"Yeah! Russell, this is Double Dee, he's my best friend…well, next to Eddy, Eddy is so cool… But _yes_! Russell and I braved the caves of the Winter Planet as soon as we arrived, hunting down Space Pirates and foiling their evil plans! Isn't that right, Russell?" Edd looked at the arm cannon quizzically, and decided not to question Ed's antics – whatever one could do to keep one's sanity in these strange times, after all…

The lovable oaf, however, quickly disregarded Russell, as if the thing had not existed in the first place, and feasted his eyes on Edd; or rather, his outfit. His eyes glimmered with a childish admiration that Edd had only seen when Ed was exposed to buttered toast or pudding skin. "Whoa-ho, Double Dee, where did you get that Psionic Blaster? Oh, _oh!_ And that radion cannon! Can I try it? Please?"

The oaf's words bouncing off of his head painfully, Edd hushed Ed and strolled up to his visor, on the floor from the Pirate's strike, and equipped it, scanning quickly through a myriad of settings. "In a moment, Ed," he responded, like a chiding father. "Allow me a moment to just…a-ha! There we are!" He turned to Ed. "Ed, can you raise your right hand?"

Nodding obediently, the boy raised his arm cannon (or "Russell") and pointed it directly at Edd's face. "Like this, Double Dee?"

Edd carefully tilted the weapon away. "Um, please be careful with that. Anyway, hold perfectly still." Heeding his visor's directions step-by-step, Edd pointed his arm cannon directly at Ed's, so the two looked perfectly ready to blast each other to kingdom come.

"And…there we go!" With the push of a set-in button on his cannon, Edd's weapon suddenly emitted a yellow glow that shot straight toward Ed's, connecting both along a bright cable of energy. Soon, both Ed and Edd were glowing with a radiant vermillion aura, as if they were one being. "If my calculations are correct, and if my visor's instructions are on the mark, then this tactic should provide you with…"

_Shinnnnng!_

And the light receded from the room.

"…a brand-new Gravity Suit," said Eddward with a confident smile.

Ed's smile, on the other hand, was _psychotic_ with delight.

Mission accomplished. The weight of the universe receded from Edd's weary shoulders. His companion was suited up and ready to go thanks to the data-transfer device ingrained in his suit's subsystems, and Edd was all too happy to take the back seat while handing Ed the proverbial keys to the car. Ed, as expected, regarded his new attire with jaw-dropped awe, gazing down at the polished sheen of his Gravity Suit (laced with charges of Spider Magnetism), the luster of his refined arm cannon (equipped with beams of Power and Wave variants!), his very-spiffy Bomb Glove…all those sacred ornaments that Edd had painstakingly chanced upon and striven for, all delivered express in a single convenient package. It was almost unfair, actually.

He decided then that Ed would be the one to buy the Jawbreakers when they all returned home.

"Whoa…I have evolved, Double Dee!" He looked up at Edd with wild eyes. "I am Space Outlaw, version 2! Awaiting your orders, chief!" He saluted himself, knocking himself on the forehead with his arm cannon and sending comets sputtering around his cranium.

"Yes, very good, Ed!" chuckled Edd, his entire nervous system awash in waves of confidence. At that point, one more question remained in his mind, and accordingly the two of them averted their gaze to the Space Pirate's corpse slumped against the far wall – the sight unnerved Edd, for he had never seen one of such decoration before, decked out in deep reds like that. "And what of our, um…friend here?"

Both boys approached the body of the dead Pirate, Edd prompting his scan visor.

Ed also regarded the beast, flipping into his own database of B-movie lore. "I've seen this before, Double Dee," he quizzed, prodding his reddened lower lip in deep "thought". "If I may sumo-rise… okay, so, the Frozen Robot Planet Knights traveled in packs in order to corner and trap the stranded Space Outlaws – _but,_ the aliens always followed a _leader_, one that was _so_ good at tracking down marooned spacemen that some say they were bred from birth to "hunt the hunters"…" He took a deep breath and "thought" some more. "Oh yeah! With mutated armor, they would fight the Outlaws with energy shields, grenade launchers, and super speed!..."

"…A Pirate Commando," mused Edd, finishing Ed's tirade. "Yes, I believe you're right, Ed. My scan visor indicates that this particular Pirate was assigned to oversee all Space Pirate operations in the Phendrana region, a high-ranking officer, to put it in layman's terms. If I understand this correctly, everything from Phendrana to Magmoor was within his sphere of influence, and listen to this, Ed…our friend here was answerable only to Ridley."

"Oh yeah, I remember!" responded Ed, recalling the events on the _Orpheon_. "The evil Space Dragon, soaring above the skies of the robot planet! Very dangerous, Double Dee. Always be careful, for Space Dragons always cast their shadows when they fly under the sun!"

"That is correct, Ed," said Edd, thinking back to that haunting shadow he had seen on the shorelines of Phendrana. "Now, as you may or may not know, Glacier One was intended to be a research outpost for the Pirates to study and further their program, until you and I attacked them from both sides, effectively disabling all personnel…and just now, we've seen the end of the highest-ranking officer in the region."

He scanned the fragments of the Pirate's chestplate on the ground and recited the only thing resembling a name he could find in the mess: "ash-Siimgahr, S.P. Commando, S.P.F. _Orpheon_."

Ed repeated the name in something resembling reverence.

But Edd could hardly stand to look at the Pirate's face any longer.

He deactivated his scan visor and turned to his companion, a bewildered look on his face as he tried to piece together every puzzle fragment that had been revealed over the past couple of hours.

"Ed, do you realize what we've done?" he deadpanned. "This Commando, this ash-Siimgahr…this wasn't some lackey or _footsoldier_, Ed, this Pirate was in charge of the entire Glacier One operation. Everything we've seen so far – everything _I've _seen so far – was under the thumb of this entire Glacier One force. And what we did in the laboratories…all that data, all of those Pirates…the Metroids…" He stopped for a second, not even looking at Ed at this point. "It's all finished. All devastated. The Space Pirates, everything they have here in Phendrana, gone. They're _finished_, Ed! By Jove, man, do you realize what's happening here? I do believe we've done it!" His catharsis was boiling over.

"'Fraid not, Double Dee."

Edd glared at his friend, flabbergasted. "Um…excuse me, Ed?"

But Ed's face was devoid of humor.

"Where there is peace in our galaxy, there are sure to be evildoers who want to take it away for their own gain. The thieves from the stars are always planning and plotting against the forces of good, even on the frozen robot planet, and always build bigger and better bases for their evil plans. Unless there is good in this galaxy, they will be able to roam freely and commit vile deeds, and there will be nobody to stop them, until everything we know and love is destroyed at their hands. That is why a Space Outlaw's duty will never be done, _never, _until the stars are safe to shine once more."

His face was solemn, and his visor was on upside-down.

"…A witty monologue to be sure, Ed…though I can't help but feel you're on to something," conceded Edd with a skeptical stare. Sure, he had absorbed most of what Ed had said, but in the meantime something had snagged onto his attention: a small, stuttering noise, an annoyance at best, echoing from some undefined corner of the cavern. "Um, do you hear that noise?"

"Nope, that's just me not knowing when to shut up, a-_yup_!" cried Ed gleefully, throwing his hands up into the air.

Edd looked downward at the corpse of ash-Siimgahr and bent down; the incessant noise, like a fly-buzz, was emanating from _it._ "It sounds like static. Ed, honestly, do you hear it?"

"…Whoa, I do, Double Dee!" marveled Ed as he inched closer to the corpse. "A funny noise coming from under ash-Siimgahr's hand, see?" Ed leaned over and lifted up the Commando's right arm, revealing a small, black device, resembling a miniature calculator, gripped within its talons. "Found it! I would've made a great Urban Ranger, huh?"

"Ah-ha! Fine sleuthing work, Ed!" said Edd as he approached the thing, reactively reaching into his pocket for a magnifying glass that, alas, he had forgotten to pack. "But what exactly could it be?"

"Oh, I've seen that kind of thing before, Double Dee! I've seen _a lot _of things before, actually! Now, if only I brought my latest issue of '_Space Graters in the Midst of-'_"

_Kshhh…._

Both Ed and Edd went silent and gawked at the construct.

_Kshhh…shhh…Ed...kshhh…z'at yo…kksh?...ksh…hey!..._

"Erm, what in heaven's name is _that_?" muttered Edd, grabbing the box and performing a quick scan on it, before playing with the two dials on its front surface. "It appears to be a radio, Ed, but I'm not sure who could be sending a transmission at a time like this. Hello? Come in?"

_"…Hey! Double Dee? Is that you?_"

A jolt of pure adrenaline shot straight through Ed and Edd's heads as they realized the blazing magnitude of the words coming through the staticy box. They looked at each other, mouths agape.

"…Eddy?" quizzed Edd. "Uh…y-yes, it's me, Double Dee! Oh my word, it's _Eddy!" _Edd's face lit up with excitement, a smile unsurpassed as he gawked at Ed in disbelief, showing him the box. "Ed, can you hear it? _Eddy!_"

Ed just stared at the box in puzzlement. "Whoa…is Eddy in the radio, Double Dee? How'd you get in there, Eddy?"

_"Ed, you idiot! What box?" _came Eddy's refreshingly gravelly voice through the speaker. _"…Oh man, forget it…great to hear from ya, Lumpy! Man, you guys have no idea what I've had to put up with all day! I'm cold, I'm damp, and my back's killin' me! Speaking of which, where've you two been all day?"_

The radio trembled in Edd's grip. "We're in a mountain range on the southern end of the planet, Eddy!" explained Edd slowly, trying to contain his excitement. "Ed and I have spent all day separated, but we've _just now_ met up, and I assure you, Eddy, it wasn't easy!"

_"Wasn't easy? You mean you didn't land at the same spot? See, I was right, I knew that escape pod idea of yours wouldn't work! That's the last time I let you handle the 'planning'!" _It seemed obvious at this point that he was aiming to scold Edd for yet _another _botched plan, and Edd prepared himself for it.

But then again, had it really been the failure he had believed it to be, all things considered? He'd have to think on it, but for now he simply played along with Eddy's game. "Unfortunately not. I made planetfall in a forest far to the north while Ed landed in this very mountain range. It took me, I would estimate…over eight hours to find him. _Perhaps _ten, I'm not quite certain."

"And boy, did he find me!" offered Ed enthusiastically.

_"Hold it. Hold it, hold it, hold it. Stop the presses. You're tellin' me that YOU did all the legwork, Sockhead? _came Eddy's voice, obviously laced with disbelief._ "And eight freaking hours? Ten, maybe? Man, what took you guys so long? Were you smellin' alien daisies the whole time or somethin'?"_

Edd let out another sigh, already imagining the lecture he was going to have to give. "It would take far too long to explain everything to you now, Eddy. We'll save that for when we reconvene, but for now just _try _to imagine hiking hundreds of miles through deadly terrain _while _being attacked by killer fauna _and _flora, and then maybe you'll get a clear picture of why we took our sweet time. But that's all for another time. More importantly, where are _you_?"

_"…I'm in a trash heap, what do you think?"_

"Oh come now, Eddy, you can certainly be more helpful than _that_."

_"No foolin'! I mean, you oughta see it. The place is a wreck."_

"Alright, well…do you have a name for the location? Anything that would give us a clue?"

_"Yeah, some computer screens said something about 'Phazon Mines.' I guess that means I'm stuck in 'em."_

"'Phazon Mines'…?" Edd gulped as waves of horrific possibility crashed on the shores of his imagination. "Um…right, Phazon Mines. Unfortunately I don't think Ed and I can locate you with that kind of name, as it's not registering on my visor's mapping system. You'll have to describe the area. Are you inside a building of some sort?"

_"…Uh, I think so. The place is really stinkin' dark, and I'm guessin' I'm underground."_

"Right. How about an outside environment? Have you seen any windows? It may be too dark to see, because the sun's already setting on our end of the planet, but anything would help."

_"Wait a sec, lemme see…"_ there was a short pause, the sound of running, and then Eddy spoke again. _"Yep, there's a window right here. I was lookin' outside it before I rang you up. Um…the outside…well, it's rainin' pretty hard outside. Sky's all dark 'n cloudy…sun hasn't gone down yet, I don't think, but I can't see it from here. Oh, and I'm lookin' at a big freakin' crater, too. You should see this thing!"_

Edd's body froze. "C-c-crater?" Thoughts of the Chozo, running wildly in his mind. "Wait, Eddy, say that again. You're looking at a _what_ now?"

_"…A crater, Double Dee," _repeated Eddy impatiently._ "Just a big hole in the ground. Remember when Ed was shot out of Rolf's chimney on the day Stretch's relatives came to visit, and he crashed into the playground and left this huge hole? You know, the day we all thought aliens were invading town? Sort of like that, but waaaaay bigger. It's like as big as the cul-de-sac. What, you know something about it?"_

"Um, no, I'm just curious…what about outside the crater? What's the environment like?"

_"Looks like a forest. Like, trees and junk, looks a lot like the woods around the cul-de-sac. Just imagine if the cul-de-sac was just a big hole in the ground."_

"…A forest? With that weather…oh, obviously a _rainforest_!" And then it hit him like a club over his head. "Eddy, believe it or not, I think I know the general location of your landing site! That forest you're referring to may be the Tallon Forest, where I landed the gunship!"

_"Really? Sweet! So what're you waiting for? Get over here and...give…a…nd…Space Pir…vrywhere…"_

"Oh no…Eddy, you're breaking up!" cried Edd, shaking the radio desperately, turning knobs at random – Ed, behind him, seemed to be jumping up and down in a state of worry.

"Hold on, Eddy, don't break, we don't have any duct-tape with us!" he cried.

_"…at? Stupid ra…o…Ed…ble Dee…hurry it up…can't wai…orever, y'know!"_

"Just stay calm Eddy, and persevere!" shouted Edd, his voice ringing shrilly off the frozen walls. "Ed and I will be there as soon as possible! Just give us time and we _will find you!_"

No response. Just static.

"_Eddy!_" And the radio had cut off; Edd, with a grievous sigh, pocketed the contraption in his violet heat-regulating coat and turned his eyes to the ground in a state of deep thought.

"Eddy said 'Space Pirates', Double Dee!" cried Ed in a state of sheer panic, grabbing onto Edd's arm desperately. "Our fellow Space Outlaw is in danger! Hurry! We must rescue him before he succumbs to the horrible depths of the-"

"Not…yet, Ed."

The words horrified Ed, his face turning nearly ghost-white, his heart almost instantly broken. "Why not, Double Dee? Don't you know where he is?" Ed was indeed puzzled – if they knew where their remaining friend was, why not go and pick him up right away before nightfall? "We gotta hurry! You told him you knew where he was!"

But Edd was unsettlingly calm, unnaturally so. "I do, Ed…in fact, I'm pretty sure I know the means of reaching the so-called Phazon Mines." He drawled out the word as if it were a stinging poison on his tongue. "However, as we are now, we're not prepared."

"Prepared? Oh, you can count on me, Double Dee – for Space Outlaw Ed is more than a match for the Space Pirates, and with our awesome new alien-splooshing gear, we will be able to trounce any fiend that we-"

"Perhaps, Ed, but please, hear me out on this one," said Edd. "Based on what I've read of the Pirate data in the Glacier One laboratories, the Phazon Mines are _also_ a Space Pirate stronghold, and based on the fact that Ridley was headed there, I'm assuming that's their primary base of operations. I know, I know, at first I had held the hope that Glacier One was the only mainstay of the Pirates' operations, despite what the data had indicated, but after what Eddy said, now I know that I was wrong. There's a whole other base out there, waiting for us." He then turned to his comrade, a grave seriousness reflected in his eyes. "We need munitions, Ed! And lots of them, at that!"

_Now_ Ed began to understand! "Do you mean…alien technology, Double Dee?"

A nod. "Pre-_cisely_, Edd. And I do believe that the Chozo can help us we have to do is consult my trusty scan visor, and we will have our supplies soon enough. Remember, Ed: Eddy's counting on us to be the best rescue squad we can be. The least we can do is to go in prepared, correct?"

"Co-rrect!" bellowed Ed with a stoic salute.

"Then it sounds like a plan, Ed. We'll follow the signals indicated by my visor to locate whatever supplies we'll need, and make use of the planet's elevator network for fast transportation to their locations. After that, we'll take a long-overdue breather at the gunship, and then head out to pick up Eddy. From there, we can decide what our next course of action will be.

"But first, what say we leave this blasted Phendrana region and return to more…temperate climates? I must admit, I've been daring to hope that the gunship came equipped with hot cocoa, and I'm eager to see whether I'm right or not, because I could definitely go for some at the moment."

"Oh, me too! And don't forget the alien technology!" agreed Ed, trotting ahead toward southern end of the cave.

Ed, much to Edd's surprise, regarded the ice cavern much differently than he did; in Ed's eyes Edd could see that he saw the place as a home, a familiar sanctuary despite the battle that the two of them had partaken in within it; the same way a proud boy looks at his room, his own personal space in a wild world. And at that point, when Ed marched over toward the wall of snow on the southern end, Edd began to understand why he felt this was so:

It was where Ed's adventures as a hallowed Space Outlaw had truly begun.

He wondered whether it would be worth it to ask him if that were true.

_Ka-boooom!_

And just like that, with a surprisingly adaptative use of the Bomb module, Ed had demolished the packed snow and revealed a gaping hole in the wall; beyond was that great Pantheonic cavern that Edd had washed up into, along the riverbend. That cavern where the crimson clouds were visible, like a great, heavenly tapestry, reflecting the mysteries of a world that had begun to feel, disturbingly, like home to both of them.

As Edd approached the edge of the cliff and gazed down at the shattered lake and snow-carpet far below, Ed blurted out, "Say, Double Dee?"

"Yes, Ed?"

"What are the 'Chozo'?"

And Edd heaved a great sigh and grinned exhaustedly at his oafish companion. "Ed, I will be completely honest with you: despite all the research I've conducted on this blasted planet, I'm not exactly certain myself."

"Ooooooh, are they _mysterious _alien sages from the black beyond…?"

Edd had to laugh at that. "Again, Ed, I don't disagree with that possibility. In fact, I believe you may not be far off the mark…"

Such small-talk was to comprise the majority of their bantering, Edd figured, and all the while he figured it would be best to dodge Ed's questions about the Chozo until he himself was sure of their true nature. So with the ice-laden caverns at their backs, Ed and Edd, exhausted but with renewed determinations, turned away from the southern borders of Phendrana and marched solemnly forward in the wake of a glacier now unquestioningly collapsed.

_One down, one more to go, _thought Edd with a smile, as Ed followed close behind, guffawing stupidly all the while.

* * *

"Argh, stupid broken piece of junk!"

Eddy chucked the makeshift radio across the elevator chamber with all of his might as his communication with his friends dissipated into a mere crackle – the thing bounced off the wall with a sharp tinnish sound. "Of all the times for that thing to screw up on me…" When he looked outside, he saw that the rain, a light drizzle before, had picked up into a regular monsoon. No wonder. "Just great. Least I'm inside and not…out _there_."

But what a feeling! He couldn't, in truth, stay mad for too long, because that short conversation had erased all need for speculation. He wasn't ready to believe that Edd _really _did all of the legwork he had led onto, but at least his friends were teamed up and coming to get him. And though Eddy was the _real _brains and the _real _brawn of the three of them, he knew Ed and Edd would make a serviceable duo and would find him in moments _flat. _

"I just gotta lay low 'til then, and I'll be back home in Peach Creek before the sun comes up," he said with a casual shrug. He was a little cheesed that they had wasted so much time on Tallon IV, for no doubt the candy store was closed by now, which meant they'd have to wait until tomorrow to try out another scam, but at least he wasn't going to _die alone _on this forsaken _rock. _"And that'll be a breeze. I mean, just look at my polished track record. I'm like a shadow on the wall around here. But man, I can't wait to see the look on Kevin's face when I show up at his doorstep in a _gunship_…"

With a joyful whistle to himself he pocketed that radio, in case it still worked, and returned to the portal; he was relieved to see that, in the interim, it had finally unlatched itself and gradually opened at his presence. "That's _really _unnecessary," he snorted. "I mean, what is this, they forget to oil this thing?"

Stepping across the threshold, he commented further: "Okay, who's the _idiot _who turned out the lights in here?"

Though he couldn't see past his own nose, Eddy could make out a subtle ambiance that hummed throughout the entire room – a large chamber, from what he could make out. The whirring of machines, a glimmering tinge of force-field…he had come to know the tell-tale signs of security and data-keeping terminals, and this room was chock-full of 'em. Not that that posed a problem, he thought, but the main question was whether the place was peopled with Space Pirates or not.

_Probably not_, he thought, shuffling his boots on what was probably a catwalk. _There haven't been any of those losers around for a loooong time. I really need to find a light-switch. I'm not falling down anymore stairs, you hear?_

Carefully, and _very _much so, Eddy felt his way around a railing until he did come across a series of steps leading downward; steep though they were, he slowly went down their length into what seemed like an endless chasm, boots hardly making a sound due to his extreme care. A shadow on the wall, indeed.

His boots then audibly _crunch_ed on a dirt floor, but that was the least of Eddy's worries; in fact, due to his reduced height in the room, some things in the chamber became starkly visible; from where he had entered, there must have been a partition or low ceiling that obscured his sight, for now most of the place was visible.

It was indeed a large cave, the most massive he had seen yet, far larger than even the quarry outside the mines; the faint LCD shimmering of monitors speckled the scene like faint stars, lightyears away, attended to by myriads of Space Pirate personnel (Eddy allowed himself a curse under his breath). The entire procession of tech, of course, was not all in a pew-like pattern as in previous chambers; rather, they were all orbiting a gargantuan crimson cube, roughly the size of what _had _been Eddy's house, comprised of a series of thick force-fields, rippling with powerful sealing energies. Its glow painted everything in Eddy's sight a deep, haunting red, as if his eyesight had been stained with blood.

_And…_ he thought as he hid by the far south wall, eyes straining on the force-field itself. _What...the heck…is that?_

The "that" that Eddy referred to happened to be the being contained _within _the force-cube, and though he was sure it was a living creature, he couldn't even find a word to describe its form. Blurred by the rippling of surrounding energies, it appeared to be a hellish spider-creature of an unprecedented size, towering over the Pirates, rendering them ants in comparison – six fidgeting, arachnid legs, spanning the entire space of the cube. Stark in red, it seemed a projection of Eddy's greatest fears, the kind of monster he would have recurring nightmares about.

It was like staring into a black hole and envisioning the horror of eternity.

_If only Double Dee were here_, he thought, trying with all his strength to take his eyes off of the disturbing titanic creature. He did so by finding a distraction, a terminal about ten feet away. He rapped his scan visor with quick fingers and absorbed the information contained within, not expecting to know what any of it meant but looking forward to something to read instead of something to fear.

Only two lines appeared on his visor, in bold red text:

**_RESEARCH QUARRY ONE_**

**_ TEST SUBJECT Z - METROID PRIME_**

"Check it out…" whispered Eddy in awe as his eyes tracked back to the Olympian titan within the cage of red. "Looks like somebody's been keepin' secrets around here…" He smiled in awe, feeling as if he had chanced upon the greatest of mother lodes, a forbidden sight. His heart pounded rapidly, like a tribal drum.

And for a split second, Eddy thought he saw a flash of something appear within the cage; directly from the creature itself, but it was too fast for him to properly make out. He blinked a few times, ran the possibilities through his head, and though he wasn't exactly certain, he felt as if he had been noticed. _Seen._ _Spotted_.

Those, he knew, had been _eyes _that had flashed upon him.

"What the…?"

There they were again.

Red eyes, piercing through his own from such a far distance, penetrating his mind and staring into the deepest trenches of his soul, as if his body had vanished and only his spirit remained…

Then, a voice rang out in his head.

Eddy immediately fell to his knees, shell-shocked.

And screamed as the cage exploded into ten million crimson shards.


End file.
